

Gass 


Book 



Copyright N° ^<y// 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 







By Edith Henrietta Fowler 


Patricia 

The Young Pretenders 
The Professor’s Children 
A Corner of the West 
The World and Winstow 
For Richer, for Poorer 

also 

The Life of Lord Wolverhampton 


"PATRICIA 


BY 

EDITH HENRIETTA FOWLER 

•I 

(HON* MRS* ROBERT HAMILTON) U 




G* P* PUTNAMS SONS 
NEW YORK LONDON 

Cbe IKnfc&etbocfcer ipress 

1915 





Copyright, 1915 

BY 

EDITH HENRIETTA HAMILTON 


v/ 



Ube fttticfcerbocfcer Press, Hew lt?orb 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. — A House of Mourning . . . i 

II. — The Rectory 25 

III. — Patricia in the Parish . . .48 

IV. — The Limitations of Lynfield . . 77 

V. — “ The Serpent Tempted Me ” . . 106 

VI. — “ And I Did Eat ” . . . .131 

VII. — Golly’ s Chances . . . .154 

VIII. — The Valley of Decision . . .186 

IX. — The Drawing-Room Meeting . .216 

X. — Lord Wellingborough . . .251 

XI. — “Off With the Old Love” . . 283 

XII. — “On With the New” . . . 314 

XIII. — In London 336 

XIV. — Through Deep Waters . . . 372 

XV. — Patricia Finds Herself . . . 404 

iii 



4 


Patricia 


CHAPTER I 

A HOUSE OF MOURNING 

“Luncheon is served, Miss,” declared the 
butler in those solemn and impressive tones in 
which such announcements are usually made. 

“Oh, Fitz! doesn’t it seem awful, somehow?” 
And the girl looked up from the fire, over which 
she had been crouching to get some warmth into 
her nerve-cold hands. 

“What does? ” asked her brother, throwing away 
a barely touched cigarette. 

“That luncheon should be served, as Watson 
puts it, when Father has only just died ! Not even 
one hour ago yet!” 

“Well, what would you have had him say?” 

“I don’t know,” and she gave a nervous little 
laugh, “only ‘luncheon’ sounds so heartless and 
horrid.” 

“If sandwiches and weak sherry and water on 

i 


2 


Patricia 


a tray would jar less upon your frame of mind, old 
girl, by all means have them, but I am going down 
to lunch.” 

“ Of course! So am I, ” and she jumped up and 
linked her arm through that of the young man. 
“I am so glad you are ordinary, Fitz. I feel as if 
I wanted ordinariness more than anything else 
just now. Oh! I do hope there will be a leg of 
mutton for lunch, or something there is no mystery 
about. Do you remember Aunt Lucy always 
says that she thinks it so dreadful when people are 
going to be hanged to put in the papers that they 
ate a good breakfast — she should have only dry 
toast and tea if she were going to be hanged. But 
do you know I don’t agree with her. I should have 
bacon — just dull, homelike, ordinary, cheerful 
bacon.” 

“I should have curry or devilled kidneys.” 

“Oh, Fitz! Don’t make me laugh. Watson 
would think it so awful if we laughed at lunch.” 

“I have wired to Uncle George. I expect they 
will come to-morrow. Tell them to have all the 
spare rooms ready,” he added to the butler, “and 
for heaven’s sake, pull up that blind.” 

“Yes, sir, very good, sir.” And Watson’s face 
expressed stem disapproval. 

“You keep in these back rooms overlooking the 
gardens, old girl, where you can see the sky and 
trees. I suppose for convention’s sake we must 
darken the front rooms — heathenish custom 
though it is!” 


3 


A House of Mourning 

“Isn’t Mr. Whately coming this afternoon? 
It will be horrid. I hate lawyers.” 

“Don’t bother about them. Order some new 
clothes. That will cheer you up.” 

A little smile crept back over the girl’s white 
face. 

“Clothes are a comfort! And a legitimate 
comfort, too, as one must get mourning. I’ll 
telephone to Jay’s. But, Fitz, ” and her smiling 
lips quivered a little, “I do wish things like this 
wouldn’t happen.” 

“Don’t think about it, for heaven’s sake,” and 
the young man looked anxiously at her. “You 
simply mustn’t get upset, and you know you will be 
if you think about things. Talk about clothes, 
or motor cars, or rice pudding, or suffragettes, or 
anything, but do be ordinary.” 

“ Like the roast mutton and the bacon. Yes, we 
must be very ordinary, Fitz, and not a bit af- 
fectionate or anything upsetting. Don’t kiss me 
for the world.” 

“Nothing was farther from my thoughts. 
There’s the telephone again. I think you’ll look 
rather well in black — pitch black, I mean, only 
soft and thin and transparent.” 

“Not all of it, Fitz? There is a piercing east 
wind, and March is still playing the lion. And 
even when it is preparing for its lamb-like exit 
there are still decencies to be considered.” 

“Are there?” replied her brother, drily; “you 
surprise me!” 


4 


Patricia 


Fitzpatrick Vaughan and his sister Patricia 
were the children of a brilliant and distinguished 
man of letters. 

Possessing all the charm and sparkle of Irish 
descent on his mother’s side and some other 
qualities also for which that race is proverbial, 
Edward Vaughan won for himself not only a 
place in the journalistic and literary inner circle, 
and in the appreciation of the most carping of 
critics, but also in the affections of his public. His 
touch was so human, his wit so understanding, his 
humour so delightful and reviving, that his read- 
ers felt for him that bond of brotherhood which 
springs from sympathy; and it was with a sense of 
personal loss that most reading men laid down the 
paper which announced the death that thirteenth 
day of March of Edward Vaughan. 

His love for Ireland and all things Irish 
amounted to a passion, which possessed the true 
childlike qualities of genius; and he thought his 
ideal of happiness lay in the hope of one day 
settling in a restored castle which was falling into 
ruins on the lands which bore his mother’s name, 
far away on the shores of an Irish lough. As a mat- 
ter of fact he could not possibly have lived happily 
out of London, nor been content to take his finger 
off the bounding pulse of the heart of things; but 
he dreamed of the bliss of being alone with Ire- 
land, amid the moods of her mountains and the 
romantic comradeship of her countryside, and 
these dreams breathed a rare atmosphere about 


A House of Mourning 


5 


him, in which his pen worked, and some of which 
it caught, so that Londoners could feel it, and be 
fascinated and refreshed even in the very hum of 
the metropolis. 

He married early in life the typical wild Irish 
girl of fiction — the daughter of a penniless Irish 
peer, — and for a very few, brief years they honey- 
mooned in Ireland, and played at life in London, 
and adored the quaint reality of a baby son, and 
built their castles in the air, and dwelt in them, 
with all the glad exuberance of youth, and Irish 
youth at that. And then a little daughter came, 
and with a tragic suddenness the light went out. 
The baby must be Irish bom, and the spot was 
romantic, and the artistic setting perfect, and such 
disturbing worries as good sanitation, analysed 
water, and competent doctors had never crossed 
their minds. But all the same they had to be 
reckoned with, and the young wife’s life was 
the price. In passionately-shallow grief Edward 
Vaughan looked his last on the beautiful face of 
his dead wife, and was comforted by the thought 
that now she would never grow old, nor lose in his 
admiring eyes her bewitching beauty, nor stale 
his love with the wear and tear of ordinary every- 
day life. He did not know of that love which is 
deeper than these superficial things, — he was not 
old enough to know of it. So the wound healed 
into a sweetly-sad memory, and his brilliant brain 
was rarefied by what he called experience, but what 
really was experimentalism. Their effect on the 


6 


Patricia 


brain is similar ; it is the heart and character which 
they affect so differently. 

To his children Edward Vaughan was a pleasant 
friend. He named them after their mother’s Irish 
kinsfolk Fitzpatrick and Patricia, and liked them 
best before they were six and after they grew up 
and began to do things. The midway stages 
rather bored him, as middle cuts of anything 
always did. His was the nature of beginnings and 
endings — the passion of welcomes, the pathos of 
good-byes. He had no use for what lay between. 
Mountain heights or deepest seas — no table-land 
for him. 

He was glad that his boy was sea-struck — the 
boy with the Irish eyes and the name of his 
mother’s race of men. He himself felt, in sym- 
pathetic imagination, the call of the sea and the 
wonder of the West ; for in picturesque imagination 
the ships are always westward-bound, even though 
they have to direct their course south or east to 
reach most places whither our sailors go. He 
thrilled with delight when the lad started on his 
first voyage, and talked much of the unknown 
seas beyond which lay the treasure of far countries 
and the adventures of heroic lives. He never 
gave a thought to that unknown sea of life upon 
which his son was setting out to sail alone, nor 
gave him a word of advice concerning the tempta- 
tions of every day. He would have preferred his 
boy to be a genius, and to be one of the world’s 
crea|ors, but as such come rarely along the line 


A House of Mourning 


7 


of generations, he accepted the inevitable, and 
rejoiced in the romance of a sailor’s calling. 

Of his daughter Patricia he was immensely 
proud. Her rather weird, delicate beauty pleased 
his taste, and her ready tongue and quick wits 
were daily delights to him. She was artistic to 
her finger tips, and with her pen possessed the 
power of portraiture and discriminating criticism 
which heredity had bequeathed to her. Together 
they read, and wrote, and reviewed at home ; and to- 
gether they tasted of the best of London’s literary, 
artistic, and political society, which in these mod- 
ern days reaches from Bohemia to Mayfair, and 
embraces much of the intellectual life of the day. 

“Don’t imagine for one moment,” he had told 
her on her debut , “that hospitality is a gratuity. 
Every meal to which you are invited you must 
earn, and you must share the responsibility of 
every party you attend. Your success in life will 
depend not on how much you yourself enjoy 
things, but on how much you can make other 
people enjoy them.” 

This was the only piece of practical advice 
Patricia ever received from her father. 

Edward Vaughan had very few relations of his 
own, and absolutely no congenial ones. He was 
the younger son of a very small country squire, 
who for his first wife married the colourless 
daughter of the rectory, and for his second a very 
clever, rather naughty Irish girl, whom he met 
during a surreptitious visit paid to the Dublin 


8 


Patricia 


Horse Show before the orthodox days of his 
mourning had quite run out. Neither marriage 
was specially happy, perhaps because neither 
woman was an ideal wife, still more likely because 
he was not to either an ideal husband, nor indeed 
knew the rudiments of which that ideal is composed. 
By each he had an only son. The first took 
Orders and his own way in life, the second, the 
latter half of that programme but not the former. 
The squire died, and the brothers, who each 
resembled his respective mother, rarely met, and 
never wanted to meet. The clergyman thought 
Edward of the world worldly, and Edward thought 
George of the Church churchy. Consequently 
they did not know how many things they might 
still have in common underneath the outward 
conventions, and their lives rarely touched, except 
during a few days’ strained intercourse when the 
George Vaughans wished to visit London and save 
an hotel bill. 

“There is not much money,” said Fitzpatrick 
with a whistle as he came into the back drawing- 
room late in the afternoon. Patricia had drawn 
the curtains to hide the shrouded windows which 
looked into Princes Gate. “I have asked old 
Whately to have some tea.” 

“How tiresome! But there’s enough to live 
on and all that, I suppose?” 

“Enough to live on — but not much for the ‘all 
that,’ my dear. I never thought there would be, ” 
he added sagely. 


A House of Mourning 


9 


“I never thought about it at all,” said the girl, 
4 ‘but I think it is really rather splendid of Father 
to have left anything — he liked spending and 
giving away so much, — and of course an income 
from writing is awfully uncertain.” 

“Yes, that’s it. Whatever he made in a year, 
he thought he was making that much every year, 
and it doesn’t always quite pan out like that. 
However, it’ll be all right. Don’t bother.” 

“There is one thing, Fitz, I do like about you — 
you carry things, and Father never did, he always 
pushed them on to me.” 

“He was rather of the ‘pay, pack, and follow’ 
type. Geniuses often are.” 

“Well, I am glad there isn’t another in the 
family. It sounds horrid I know, to be speaking 
of Father’s faults to-day, but you can’t think how 
it is comforting me to do so. I am raking them 
all up in my memory because — because — oh ! Fitz 
— you know!” 

“Tiger!” exclaimed her brother wamingly. 
“Don’t you remember how when we were little 
we would read about tigers in the daylight, and 
then when we were in bed we thought of them all 
again, and seemed to hear them padding up the 
stairs, and used to shut our eyes so that we 
shouldn’t see them glaring through the dark? 
We mustn’t talk about tigers to-day, old girl.” 

Patricia smiled a watery little smile. 

“’Ware tiger,” she said softly. 

The old lawyer was somewhat at sea. He 


10 


Patricia 


began by speaking in what Fitz called “a poorly 
voice,” but then Patricia made a joke, and the 
atmosphere became less strained. Mr. Whately 
took another cup of tea and felt better. 

“It makes it pleasanter on occasions of this 
kind when there is a large family to be sum- 
moned,” he remarked, thoughtfully regarding the 
two young people, — “more cheerful, you know.” 

“That is a matter of taste, ” replied Fitzpatrick 
drily; “in my opinion the fewer the better. Of 
course in the case of millionaires it may be different, 
but, somehow, I doubt it.” 

“We shall have my uncle and aunt to-morrow, ” 
said Patricia after the lawyer’s somewhat hushed 
guffaw had subsided, “but I don’t think it will be 
any more cheerful.” 

“I remember the Rev. George well,” mused 
Mr. Whately. “At the time of your grand- 
father’s death I saw him several times. There 
was a little disappointment about that time.” 

“There often is,” interpolated Fitz. 

“The late Mr. Vaughan’s property had dimin- 
ished;” and now Mr. Whately’ s voice assumed 
its normal tone. He was on familiar ground. 

“To vanishing point?” suggested the grandson 
cheerfully. 

“Yes, that is so. There was practically nothing 
left. It was more of a disappointment to Mrs. 
Vaughan, I fancy, than to either her husband or 
your late dear father.” 

“So it would be,” chimed in Patricia, “she 


A House of Mourning 


ii 


would know best where the shoe pinched. Uncle 
George was too unworldly to mind ; but a woman 
is never so unworldly as not to mind her husband’s 
losses, even though she may swallow her own.” 

“Your late dear father’s income was so large 
just then as to avoid the possibility of disappoint- 
ment.” 

“It was not because his income was large, but 
because his heart was, that Father didn’t care,” 
said Patricia. “However large a man’s income 
is he always wants more, unless his heart and 
nature are large enough not to. Father’s were.” 

“Quite so, quite so,” replied the lawyer dubi- 
ously. 

“Oh, Fitz!” exclaimed Patricia late that even- 
ing, when the old man had at length departed, 
“I do wish he wouldn’t speak of Father as date 
and dear.’ He was never the least dear to Mr. 
Whately, and being late won’t make him so. I 
nearly screamed.” 

“Personally it almost tempted me to ribaldry.” 

“What a mercy it didn’t quite. But I know we 
shall have an awful time with uncle and aunt.” 

“Yes, they will be both late and dear. I know 
them. Poor Patricia ! ’ ’ 

“It is just as bad for you, old man.” And she 
rubbed her pale cheek against his coat sleeve. 

“Oh no! it isn’t. I am a man, and can stand 
things. And besides, it won’t last long for me, 
and — and — it will for you.” 

“What do you mean?” asked the girl quickly. 


12 


Patricia 


“Well, you know, it’s no use blinking facts. I 
hate it all as much as you will, — but weVe got to 
stand up to things, haven’t we?” 

“Of course,” echoed Patricia drearily. 

“We can’t live on here. We couldn’t afford it. 
As a matter of fact Father couldn’t the last year 
or two; and besides, if we could, you couldn’t live 
alone. You’ll have to go to Uncle George’s when I 
rejoin my ship. I do hope you won’t hate it, Pat? ” 

“How much money have we?” the girl asked 
in a far-away voice. 

“About £300 a year each, when all is clear. 
And you couldn’t live on that alone. But I know 
uncle and aunt will be thankful to have you for 
£100 a year, and then you can dress on the other. 
You can get lots of smart frocks for that, you 
know.” .. 

Patricia smiled. 

“You dear!” she said. “It will be all right, 
Fitz. Don’t worry. I like Aunt Lucy in a funny, 
Sunday-aftemoon sort of way, and the daughters 
may be nice, though I have never seen them, 
except that once when they all came to lunch. 
Do you remember?” 

“Rather! And Uncle George was bowed down 
with carrying their three large waterproofs. I 
shall never forget seeing him panting up the front 
door-steps half hidden in rainproof drapery.” 

“The last place in the world you want a water- 
proof is London,” mused Patricia. “You can al- 
ways take a taxi if it rains.” 


A House of Mourning 


13 


“They were prepared for all emergencies. A 
taxi-strike or a flood.” 

“But Uncle George would know there wouldn’t 
be a flood, because of Noah and the rainbow, and 
all that.” 

“Ah! my dear, he followed the example of us 
all; we believe with our hearts — at least some of 
us do — but we think it as well to be prepared for 
any little hitch in Providential machinery all the 
same.” 

His sister laughed. 

“When things are real,” she said, “aren’t they 
different from what we felt they would be? At 
least, aren’t we different in the middle of them? 
If any one had told me that in one day I should 
be orphaned and homeless and poverty-stricken, 
with nothing to look forward to but life in a 
country rectory with impossible relations, and no- 
thing to look back upon that wasn’t all saddened 
and aching because of Father’s going — and that 
I should have the heart to laugh at one of your 
jokes, Fitz, I should have said they were simply 
mad. Yet here am I, and my eyes feel as dry as 
March roads, and nothing seems to matter. It 
is almost a relief when the worst has happened.” 

“I know.” 

“I have been struggling and striving so hard to 
keep Father from dying all these last dreadful 
weeks. I sent for specialists, and other opinions, 
and Christian Scientists, and Faith Healers, and I 
prayed myself dry ; and now he is dead — my brain 


H 


Patricia 


keeps saying over and over again, ‘Father is dead/ 
just to make me believe the impossible — I feel 
I have time to rest. There is nothing more to be 
done, and I have used up all my caring. Oh, Fitz! 
I know just how David felt when they told him 
the child was dead. He couldn’t go on weeping 
and fasting any longer.” 

“ Go to bed, old girl. You are fagged out. And 
think about any nice things you can.” 

“My new hat and the ostrich feather boa?” 
she suggested smiling. 

“By all means, and all the blouses in creation.” 

“Even David changed his apparel, and he was a 
King of Israel while I am ” 

“Go to bed,” commanded her brother, “and 
never mind what you are.” 

But his bright face clouded over as the door 
shut. 

“Poor Patricia!” he muttered sadly. 

On the following day the George Vaughans ar- 
rived — two large, ungainly, good-hearted people, 
who felt as strange in London as they looked. 
They brought with them countless parcels, and 
a large tight bunch of daffodils, because they 
felt it would comfort Patricia to have some flow- 
ers fresh from the country. That she would 
have huge quantities fresh from the greenhouse, 
had not occurred to them; and the sight of the 
Princes Gate drawing-room filled with a flood of 
colour, both in pots and vases, almost took Mrs. 
Vaughan’s breath away. Actually lilies of the 


A House of Mourning 


15 


valley shedding their sweet fragrance, and glowing 
azaleas, and waxen hyacinths, and great golden 
Lent lilies till the very room seemed like a con- 
servatory. Mrs. Vaughan felt it would not be 
nice to wear colours on that sad journey, so she 
had extracted a costume of scratch mourning out 
of her resourceful storeroom, to which the parish 
was wont to look with so much confidence for 
the supply of most of its needs from a Con- 
firmation cap to a steam kettle. It was a little 
old and patchy, she knew, but dear Patricia 
would be too sorrowful to notice anything of 
the kind. 

She was crying softly and smelling the flowers 
when the girl ran into the room. 

“ Oh, Aunt Lucy ! I am so sorry I was not down 
to receive you,” she exclaimed, “but I was just 
trying on, and could not come. The woman has 
swallowed a mouthful of pins I feel sure, I hurried 
her so.” 

“My love! my love!” wailed her aunt. “We 
do feel for you so. Don’t we, George?” 

Uncle George blew his nose with such a violent 
trumpeting sound that Patricia uttered a little 
laugh. 

“Hysteria,” whispered her aunt. “Grief often 
takes girls that way.” 

“I feel Edward’s death deeply,” he remarked 
in lugubrious tones. 

“Do you?” asked his niece, astonished. “I 
never knew you liked Father!” 


i6 


Patricia 


“My dear,” reproved her uncle, “we were 
brothers.” 

“So were Cain and Abel,” said Patricia flip- 
pantly. “ Not that I mean, ” she added hurriedly, 
“there was any likeness to either of you in them; 
only it didn’t seem quite to follow that you 
must necessarily be friends, you know.” 

“Don’t worry her, George,” Aunt Lucy broke 
in. “She is naturally upset. Yes, my dear, I 
should like to go upstairs and see my room. And 
I have brought you some flowers, though you 
seem to have so many.” 

“Thank you so much,” and Patricia quickly 
cut the string round the daffodils which her aunt 
held out to her. “You have pinched their waists 
a little tight,” she explained “and that has made 
them a bit breathless and drooping.” 

“These are fresh from the country,” repeated 
Mrs. Vaughan. “I gathered them in the walk 
that leads to the churchyard this morning.” 

“Oh, don’t mention churchyards!” cried the 
girl. “Fitz and I call that sort of thing 
‘tiger.’” 

“A trifle unhinged!” whispered Mrs. Vaughan 
to her husband, as she followed Patricia out of the 
room — “grief often has that effect. She seems 
to me almost to ramble a little. Poor child!” 
and the good lady’s tears welled up afresh. 

On the stairs she asked in a whisper : 

“Which room is it, dear?” 

“The spare room, aunt,” replied Patricia, wil- 


A House of Mourning 17 

fully misunderstanding, and speaking in the 
sharpened shrillness of overstrained nerves. 

“I mean which room is your father in?” and 
Mrs. Vaughan gulped down a sob. 

“Oh! Father died in his own room, of course, ” 
answered her niece sharply. “He has been ill 
you know for some weeks.” 

“We will go in together, my love, this afternoon. 
I don’t feel quite equal to it now,” and the good 
lady laid her bonnet on the bed with a sigh. 

“Go in!” exclaimed Patricia. “What do you 
mean? I wouldn’t go in for the world. I have 
never seen any one dead.” 

“But your own father, dear. And besides you 
must have, when you were with him as he passed 
away.” 

“But I wasn’t with him!” and Patricia pulled 
up the blind with such a sudden snap that Mrs. 
Vaughan nearly jumped across the room. “It is 
three days since I saw him. They let me come 
in then because he looked like himself just asleep, 
though he really was unconscious. I think it is 
dreadful to go and look at dead people,” she 
added hotly. 

“There, there, my dear!” said her aunt in a 
soothing voice, which maddened Patricia. “In 
the parish it would be considered most unsym- 
pathetic not to see the departed. I have got into 
that way, I suppose.” 

“Oh, Fitz!” cried the girl, rushing into his little 
smoke-room, which was situated on a crag-like 


i8 


Patricia 


precipice of the back stairs, “they are awful! 
they want to go in and look at Father,” and she 
burst into tears. 

“The fools!” muttered Fitzpatrick under his 
breath. “There, buck up, old girl. For heaven’s 
sake don’t cry, or you’ll never stop. Damn it! 
The flood of tears, I mean, ” and he dabbed at her 
cheeks with his bandanna. 

“ I am sure they mean to be kind,” she whispered. 
“Aunt Lucy never attempted to answer back, and 
I was really frightfully cross. She treated me as 
if I were a lunatic, but quite harmless.” 

“ I am sure I hope I shan’t laugh at them straight 
out,” continued her brother, “but if they be- 
gin the orthodox manner I know I shall, and 
make ribald jokes, and do everything I ought 
not.” 

“Just like Father would himself. Oh! can’t 
you imagine him, Fitz, taking them off? He 
always did laugh at the Georges. ” 

“Yes, he would have enjoyed them now beyond 
words.” 

“They’ll be awfully upset because there was no 
death -bed scene and all that ; I can see it in Aunt 
Lucy’s face now.” 

“I don’t care how upset they are, Pat, if only 
you aren’t. Hold on to your sense of humour for 
your very life, and you’ll get through all right,” 
and he patted her shoulder approvingly. 

“And her mourning, Fitz! She owned it was 
scratch. And it is!” 


A House of Mourning 


19 


And Patricia’s face was quite bright again as 
the two went into the drawing-room. 

“Did my brother say anything that indicated 
he was aware of his impending decease?” asked 
Uncle George in the early watches of that never- 
ending afternoon. 

“Yes,” replied Fitz briefly, “he knew right 
enough. ” 

“Might I ask for a repetition of his words? 
Last words are valuable. ” 

“Provided they’re not a woman’s,” put in 
Patricia smiling. Her aunt stroked her hand in 
the sort of way in which you pat a dangerous dog. 

“He said — to be absolutely accurate — ” con- 
tinued Fitz with a keen glance at Patricia, but in 
the most matter-of-fact tones he could command, 
“‘Doctor, the little girl in the house opposite is 
to be married on Thursday; don’t let my funeral 
spoil her show!’ so that is why we are waiting 
till Friday. By the way, Pat, there’s an enormous 
cardboard box for you in the hall. Something 
to try on, I expect. You go and look, and let me 
see if I like your new clothes.” 

“ It is such a trial having to think about clothes 
at such a time as this, ” said Mrs. Vaughan. 

“Oh, aunt! it is the greatest comfort, I think,” 
exclaimed Patricia. “Clothes are so interesting, 
and absorbing, and amusing, and keep one’s 
thoughts from dropping down into horrible real 
feelings. ” 

“Chiffon bridges over dangerous depths,” sug- 


20 


Patricia 


gested Fitz; “you go with her, aunt, and see what 
she’s getting.” 

“A chiffon bridge is a strange metaphor,” said 
Uncle George as the ladies left the room, “chiffon 
is too frail a substance to be used in that con- 
nexion. ” 

“Wherein lies the truth of the metaphor,” ob- 
served his nephew quietly. “Poor Patricia is 
awfully overwrought, because my father meant a 
lot to her — but she must be kept from breaking 
down at all costs.” 

“Why?” and the good man looked over the top 
of his spectacles blandly. “ I should have thought 
it the best possible thing for her to have her cry 
out.” 

Fitzpatrick shrugged his shoulders. “I happen 
to know it wouldn’t be, ” he said drily. 

The George Vaughans’ visit was not a success. 
They were kind and patient and long-suffering, 
though they thought the young people very heart- 
less and flippant — a sad illustration of the decad- 
ence of the rising generation. They could not 
understand Patricia’s dry and tearless eyes all the 
day of the funeral, when she ought to have been 
sobbing into a black-bordered pocket-handkerchief. 
And it really was amazingly extravagant of Fitz- 
patrick to light endless cigarettes and throw them 
away after the first few whiffs. The whole at- 
mosphere of the house in Princes Gate had the same 
effect on Uncle George and Aunt Lucy as a highly- 
heated greenhouse would have had upon a sturdy 


A House of Mourning 


21 


crocus; they could hardly breathe. Everything 
Patricia and her brother ought to have done they 
did not, and they also did all the things that they 
most decidedly ought not to have done, in the 
opinion of their more conventional relations. 

But all things do come to an end — even the day 
of a funeral; and it was with a real sigh of relief 
that Aunt Lucy pressed her garments back into 
the bulging portmanteau that night preparatory to 
the morrow’s joyful journey. 

Fitzpatrick and his sister sat together in the 
smoke-room trying to hide how much they both 
minded the break-up of their attractive home. 

“Doesn’t it smell nice?” said Patricia, blowing 
rings of smoke. “I feel as if I never wanted to 
smell a flower again. ” 

“ Oh, I don’t know about that, ” and Fitz nodded 
wisely, — “it’s only those beastly, sickly, white 
things I’d avoid, if I were you. A nice red rose 
would be all right.” 

“I’ll look forward to it as one of the delights 
of the country. Do you think the Georges mind 
my going to them?” 

“ Oh no ! They’re awfully glad to get the money. 
Aunt said it would make a lot of difference to 
them, — besides the pleasure of having you your- 
self, my dear.” 

“That is a pleasure she’s a bit afraid of, I 
think,” and Patricia laughed, “and I suppose I 
shan’t quite eat the £150 a year, but leave them 
a margin.” 


22 


Patricia 


“They begged for it only to be £100. Uncle 
George was at me again after dinner tonight about 
it. They think it only costs about seven-and-six 
a week to keep any one, but that’s all rot.” 

“Nothing would induce me to go for less than the 
£150. And I do hope they’ll make a big enough 
profit to make up for having me. I really rather 
pity them, Fitz!” 

“I really rather pity you, old girl! Think of 
a country rectory after the sort of life you’ve 
led!” 

“It doesn’t matter so much about me,” and 
she looked dreamily into the fire. “I am not 
taking any enjoyment just at present, you know. 
But I shall be an outside element in their home 
life, and the daughters may not like having me, and 
it will be an upset for them all round, because I 
am not their sort, and I don’t think I could ever 
pretend to be. No, I pity the Georges with all 
my heart!” 

“ If they never have a worse trouble than having 
you, they’ll do, ” said her brother. 

“I’m glad I am going with them tomorrow, be- 
cause I simply couldn’t bear to see a thing done 
here. I want to leave home while it is home,” 
and her lips trembled a little. 

“And mind you, no good-byes, or rot of that 
sort!” 

“Of course not. What do you take me for? 
It would be tiger of the fiercest kind. When the 
worst has not only happened, but is over, and all 


A House of Mourning 23 

the mess cleaned away, it really is rather a relief, 
isn’t it, Fitz?” 

“You’ve had about enough by now.” 

“You know, Fitz, I hated the letters, but I 
hated still more the people who didn’t write them. 
The people I really feel for are those who did write, 
and yet hated doing so as much as I hated hearing 
from them. ” 

“ Nasty thing to do — write a letter of that kind ! ” 

“But the telegrams were the best. No trouble 
to send, and no strain to receive! I really liked 
the telegrams, Fitz.” 

“An old pensioner of Father’s writes that some- 
thing tells him he shall find a friend in me. I 
don’t know what the something is, but it’s a liar!” 

Patricia laughed. “And someone cheers me up 
with the consoling reflection that when our par- 
ents go we pass over the crest of the hill and set 
our feet upon the downward path ourselves.” 

1 * How comforting ! ’ ’ 

“Another mere acquaintance makes me furious 
by alluding to Father as ‘poor dear.”’ 

“ 1 Dear ’ is a liberty and ‘ poor ’ is a lie, ” observed 
her brother. 

“You have a neat way of saying things. It 
reminds me of a chemist’s parcel with those pre- 
cise sealing- waxed ends.” 

“And a dangerous drug inside, eh? But, I say, 
do enjoy yourself all you can down at Lynfield. 
If you’ve nothing else to do you might get married, 
you know.” 


24 


Patricia 


“So I might. It would be a nice change! The 
inverse of that priceless saying of Mrs. Hankey’s, 
‘Now the weddings are over the funerals will 
begin.’” 

“I shouldn’t recommend a curate,” continued 
Fitz, “but of course you may imbibe the parochial 
environment — if people do imbibe environments. 
I forget the proper way of taking environments. ” 

“Assimilate, possibly, or perhaps reflect?” 

“By the way, are you engaged to any one just 
now?” 

“No,” she replied promptly, “most certainly 
not.” 

“Of course I didn’t mean engaged to be married 
— but just one of your usual engagements, you 
know; walking out and keeping company, and 
that kind of thing. ” 

“I have sat out a good deal with Bobby Don- 
caster this winter,” replied Patricia thoughtfully, 
“which I suppose is the next stage to walking 
out.” 

“Before or after?” queried her brother. 

“ I hardly know. Which do you think? ” 

“Before, I think. Walking out seems to me 
more active than sitting out, but I am no expert 
in such matters.” 

“I doubt that, my dear. But anyway the fact 
remains that I am not engaged.” 

“How long it will remain so is another question.” 


CHAPTER II 


THE RECTORY 

There are some days in life which stand out 
for sheer ugliness, and the very memory of which 
leaves a nasty taste in our minds for years. Such 
was the day on which Patricia went with her uncle 
and aunt to find her home in Lynfield Rectory. 
The uncomfortable journey in a crowded third- 
class carriage was bad enough for a girl who had 
never travelled before except in the de luxe style; 
the nauseating package of heavy sandwiches, 
which she surreptitiously disposed of by the help 
of an open window, was no support in providing 
her with that inward warmth which we need so 
much more in sorrow than in joy; but her first 
impressions of the rectory were worst of all. Of 
course the first view of any place is never in the 
least like the place as we know it afterwards, 
and this dripping, dreary ugliness of Lynfield 
was never again repictured on Patricia's gaze. 
When the ramshackle cab stopped at the rectory 
gates, Patricia stepped out into a more hopeless- 
looking world than her imagination had ever drawn 
or her lowest spirits feared. The rain pattered 
25 


26 


Patricia 


dolefully down on to the slushy path, and the 
trees tossed themselves about in a restless impa- 
tience of the blustering wind. 

“ A cab cannot turn up by the house, ” explained 
Mrs. Vaughan, as she clasped bags and umbrellas 
in her extended arms, and Patricia found herself 
drearily wondering how her relations managed to 
dine out, if they had to undertake so long a walk 
in evening dress beforehand. She did not know 
then that her uncle and aunt, on the rare occasions 
when they did dine out, wore waterproofs and 
goloshes, and walked not only down the drive, 
but generally the whole way to the Park and 
back again afterwards. These things were hidden 
in the future. Now Patricia’s shoes were made for 
London pavements, and her stockings were of silk, 
so by the time she reached the gaunt, grim house 
at the top of the hill, the added discomfort of 
soaking feet and splashed ankles still further 
lowered the temperature of her feelings. 

“How nice it is to be home again!” exclaimed 
Aunt Lucy with real enthusiasm, as the front door 
opened and she bustled into a stone-paved and 
stone-cold hall, which smelt of slate and was lighted 
by one blinking oil lamp. To her it was full of 
the furniture of association and lit up by the 
illustrations of her life story, and so the scene 
had no single point in common with that 
upon which Patricia looked. We talk much in 
these days of the power of environment on per- 
sonality. But the power of personality over 


The Rectory 27 

environment is an infinitely deeper and more 
subtle force. 

“May it soon be home to you, too, dear,” 
Mrs. Vaughan murmured into her niece’s ear. 
And Patricia gave her hand a responsive little 
squeeze and smiled a wan smile, as she inwardly 
hoped that this rectory might never be anything 
more to her than a wayside station on life’s 
journey, where she had only to wait for a change 
of trains. 

The George Vaughans had two daughters who 
had both passed through the flower-land of youth, 
and had gathered no blossom therein with which 
to deck their future lives. Margaret, the elder, was 
big and bouncing and managing, with an honest 
heart and an ungainly figure; apparently full of 
satisfaction with the second-best of everything, 
and with never a longing thought, so far as even 
the most intimate outsiders could tell, for the best 
which had passed her by. The younger — Agnes — 
was of entirely different stuff. She was quiet and 
sentimental, and what used to be called “genteel ” ; 
fretting in secret for a faded youth and lost oppor- 
tunities, which, by no possible combination of cir- 
cumstances, could ever have come her way; but 
which were painted in that wonderful imaginary 
picture book of the might-have-been, over which 
she pored in secret, and even at times bedewed with 
enjoyable tears. Neither sister could boast of 
any approach to good looks, though Agnes prided 
herself on her slim flat-chested figure, and pitied 


28 


Patricia 


Maggie for the healthy rotundity which debarred 
her from all claim to elegance. The elder Miss 
Vaughan held strong opinions upon most subjects, 
and was perfectly convinced that she was abso- 
lutely right. She focussed life, as she saw it, into 
a parochial point, and she was convinced that not 
only truth and common-sense were on her side, 
and on that of the rectory’s standpoint, but that 
God Himself was confined within those limitations ; 
and so it was her duty to lead into this specially 
narrow way all those who erred and were deceived 
elsewhere. 

The younger Miss Vaughan was very misty in 
all her views and distrusted herself completely. 
Her first thought on seeing her cousin Patricia 
was, “She will be able to teach me what is the 
fashion, and how to do my hair.’’ Maggie’s 
first thought was, “How much I shall be able to 
teach Patricia and what a help I can be to her.” 
So the two sisters differed far more deeply than 
any one outside knew or cared to know. The two 
Vaughan girls were regarded in local society much 
as a pair of omnibus horses would be from the 
standpoint of Tattersall’s. They ran the parish 
together, but their individual points were not 
even observed. 

“Come in, Patricia,” exclaimed Maggie, in her 
cheerful strident voice, “and get warm by the 
fire. I did not have the drawing-room fire 
lighted,” she explained to her mother, “as you 
were arriving so late. It hardly seemed worth 


The Rectory 29 

while, for I knew you would be ready for bed 
after supper. ” 

Now the dining-room was the essence of that 
country rectory. The well-worn carpet showed 
string here and there at critical thoroughfares. 
The scratched sideboard, relic of some statelier 
home, but with the come-down-in-the-world air 
which is so pathetic in both human beings and 
their possessions, bereft of the array of silver to 
which, if it could think, it would have deemed itself 
entitled, bore still, with a touch of decaying 
dignity, the dimmed cake basket, which had been 
a wedding present forty-odd years before. An 
overworked drudge of a davenport, bulging with 
parish papers and accounts, stood in the window, 
and the rector’s comfortable, shabby easy chair 
presided over the hearth-rug. The dining-room 
chairs were old and stiff, and looked tired with the 
burden of several generations. They stood in a 
well-disciplined row along the wall, except when 
clustered for meals round the centre table; but 
several odd chairs of basket work and cane filled 
up the available spaces, and gave the room an 
over- inhabited look. A vigorous treadle sewing- 
machine and a small work table were pushed into 
a corner, and all the work and literature, which had 
been amassed during the day, were littered over 
every available space either on chairs or tables. 
The big dining-table itself was the only piece of 
furniture which was not overcrowded. Though 
the supper was laid, it was furnished with only the 


30 


Patricia 


barest necessities — single knives and forks, one 
thick tumbler for each person, a loaf of bread, a 
jug of water, a plate of butter; a centre-piece 
consisting of various condiments in cut glass 
bottles, which took the place of the little army 
of mustard- and pepper-pots and salt-cellars, which 
are usually stationed round each corner of a dinner 
table; and one large dish supporting the remains of 
the mid-day leg of mutton, not even hoisted upside 
down to give it an appearance of freshness. All 
this Patricia saw in one quick, comprehensive 
glance, and her spirit quailed. 

“Let us have supper at once,” said Aunt Lucy 
heartily. “I am famished, and I am sure Patricia 
must be, too. Sit down, my love, and you say 
grace, George,” and the good lady hastily de- 
posited her outer wrappings on the top of the 
davenport, and Patricia’s coat on the sewing- 
machine. 

“For what we are about to receive may the 
Lord make us truly thankful,” said the rector 
solemnly, with closed eyes and folded hands. 

“It will be a miracle if that petition is answered 
for me,” thought Patricia, with an inward gleam 
of amusement. However, it evidently was granted 
for all the rest, and they most thoroughly enjoyed 
the unattractive meal, talking all the while of such 
local interests as Patricia could not understand. 

“Mrs. Brown’s baby was bom this morning, 
Mother,” said Maggie, fishing earnestly in the 
pickle jar for an elusive onion. 


The Rectory 


3i 


“Dear, dear!” exclaimed Mrs. Vaughan, “and 
just when I was away. How unfortunate! Poor 
Mrs. Brown. This is the first confinement of hers 
that I have missed, and it is her ninth!” 

“She got on all right,” continued Maggie, “and 
the child is a boy. ” 

“So she might, my dear, and I am thankful. 
But still,” and Aunt Lucy’s face clouded over, 
“I ought to have been there.” 

Patricia wondered why, but she was past asking 
questions. 

“The claims of death come even before those of 
birth, ” said the rector solemnly. 

“True, George. I had forgotten,” and Aunt 
Lucy lovingly patted her niece’s hand which lay 
idly on the table, blaming herself meanwhile for 
forgetfulness of another’s feelings. 

“If Fitz were here,” thought Patricia, “he 
would congratulate Mrs. Brown.” 

“And Annie Chadwick has left her place,” 
continued the elder Miss Vaughan. The younger 
seemed unable to divert her attention from the 
cut of Patricia’s blouse, and the way in which she 
did her hair. 

“I am not surprised, though I do feel for Mrs. 
Chadwick. That girl was spoiled by the visit 
she paid to those relations in Birmingham. Let 
me give you a little, my love?” her aunt inter- 
polated, ladling out of an enormous pie-dish banks 
of congealed apple. “ I do not approve of country 
girls visiting town relations. It ends in trouble.” 


32 


Patricia 


“ 1 hope a town girl visiting country relations 
won’t have the same effect,” suggested Patricia, 
with a little smile. She felt instinctively that she 
was not earning her supper as long as she sat 
critical and silent, though the price of such a meal 
was lower than she knew how to reckon. 

Maggie gave an embarrassed laugh, but her 
mother looked troubled. 

“We must hope for the best, my love,” she 
said earnestly. 

“The Mothers’ Union Annual Meeting is fixed 
for the 20th of next month. Lady Muirfield is to 
preside.” 

“And give the tea, ” added Agnes. 

“How kind of dear Lady Muirfield!” 

“The Muirfields are a great blessing in this 
parish,” remarked Uncle George. 

“I once met a boy called Golly Muirfield,” 
said Patricia. “He was always addressed as 
‘Oh Golly’!” 

“Golly!” exclaimed her aunt and cousins in 
one breath, “ I never heard of such a name. ” 

“The eldest son’s name is Godolphin,” ex- 
plained her uncle. 

“Oh, I dare say! That is probably why he is 
called Golly. You couldn’t call any one Godol- 
phin, you know. ” 

“The Honourable Godolphin Muirfield sounds 
very impressive?” suggested Agnes timidly. 

“Immensely so! But that is just why he 
couldn’t be called it, don’t you see?” and Patricia 


33 


The Rectory 

looked pleasantly at the pale, silent woman, of 
whose admiring gaze she had been conscious ever 
since she entered the room. It had been the one 
relish to her dull supper. 

"We never call him by his Christian name,” 
said Agnes wistfully, as if she had thereby let slip 
another chance. 

“I don’t approve of calling young men by their 
Christian names,” remarked Maggie in a tone 
that settled the matter. “ It leads to familiarity ! ” 

“I like familiarity,” observed Patricia reflec- 
tively. 

“Oh, my love!” exclaimed her aunt, “you are in 
fun, I am sure? One can’t be too careful in 
villages. ” 

“We have to set an example, ” continued Maggie 
with heightened colour, “as well as to preserve our 
own innate modesty.” 

Patricia gave a weak little laugh. She felt 
Fitz was missing much. “I never thought about 
that,” she said gently. “I shall have to learn.” 

Maggie looked mollified. “I shall be pleased 
to help you. Y ou are still very young, you know. ’ ’ 

To the Misses Vaughan’s early forties Patricia’s 
eight-and-twenty seemed infantile — but Patricia 
herself had long looked down on young girls. 

“ I think I’ll go to bed if I may? ” she said with a 
sudden rush of homesickness. “ I am very tired.” 

“Certainly, certainly, my love. Let me show 
you your room, and we will excuse you from family 
prayers this evening,” — and Aunt Lucy clasped 


3 


34 


Patricia 


her niece’s arm with that tender mother- touch 
which Patricia had never known. 

“She really is a dear!” thought the girl to her- 
self, as the good lady finally kissed her, and bustled 
away in haste lest she should be late for the evening 
orisons. 

“But, oh! how horrid everything else is!” and 
Patricia looked blankly round the cold, dark room 
and took in its blatant discomforts one by one. The 
fire-place was a black cavern, for no one at the 
rectory ever dreamed of having a bedroom fire. 
The towels were coarse and damp, the china 
cracked and chipped, and made up of several 
diverse patterns. There was no writing-table, 
no book shelf, no easy chair. A bedroom was a 
room to sleep in, and the bed was fairly comfortable, 
though it had a thin feeling which Patricia had 
never known before, but which arose from a hard- 
wom mattress and threadbare blankets. The 
counterpane was a bluish white and was covered 
with cotton warts, and the framework creaked at 
every movement with all the exuberance of a 
wicker chair. When Patricia at last lay down, 
trembling lest the noises were tokens of inability 
to support even her light weight, and found that 
her hot-water bottle had been filled to the tightest 
possible size with warmish water, until it rolled 
about like a football, she suddenly lost her tem- 
per and said “Damn!” After which most unre- 
generate and indecorous observation in a country 
rectory she fell asleep. 


The Rectory- 


35 


But Sunday was charming. A flood of spring 
sunshine poured through the window, and Patricia 
found that the rectory on the hill commanded one 
of those wide, satisfying views which made up for 
all the steps and climbing which seemed so tiresome 
the evening before. The whole landscape, after 
the night’s rain, smiled like a child who has had 
its face washed and been forgiven ; and as the girl 
stood at the window she traced the silver course 
of the winding river which flowed through the 
valley, and she drew a deep breath of satisfaction at 
the far-reaching stretch of distant hills, which all 
wideness of view creates in those whose powers 
grope out beyond their limitations. 

The church bell was clamouring for attention 
before Patricia was up, and when she at last de- 
scended to breakfast, she found her uncle’s family 
just coming in booted and spurred, so to speak, in 
their Sunday hats for the strenuous exercises of 
the day of rest. 

The rectory garden, too, was delightful, and the 
nodding daffodils bordered the paths with yellow, 
and the young larches down the hillside were 
blushing green as only larches can in spring 
sunshine. 

Altogether the world of Lynfield looked very 
different in the morning light, and a little letter 
from Fitzpatrick saying that of course all his 
sister’s bed- and sitting-room furniture would be 
sent after her, made her feel that life would not 
only be possible, but even perhaps pleasant, in the 


36 


Patricia 


charming Leicestershire country which was await- 
ing her to explore. 

“Sunday-school is at ten and service at eleven, ” 
said Maggie in staccato tones, as they sat down 
to sausages. And even the sausages, with their 
freshly-fried jackets and appetizing odour, brought 
added cheerfulness to the homely scene. 

“Of course, my love, we shall not expect you at 
Sunday-school, ” explained Aunt Lucy, with a 
kick under the table, directed at Maggie, but un- 
fortunately alighting on Patricia’s shin. She did 
not wish her niece cajoled or compelled to take 
part in any of those parochial exercises which she 
felt to be most unsuited to her. For though 
Aunt Lucy did not understand the home in Princes 
Gate, she had seen it, and Maggie had not. 

“We want another teacher for the second class 
of girls,” persisted the elder Miss Vaughan. 
Even had she received her mother’s kick, it would 
have been a point of honour with her to disre- 
gard it, wherein Maggie was singularly like a 
man. 

“I never could teach anybody anything,” said 
Patricia, “unless perhaps by suggestion? I won- 
der?” and she smiled half to herself. That little 
half-smile was very characteristic of Patricia, 
and of her father before her. For Edward 
Vaughan had smiled at most things in life. Just 
a slight, whimsical smile which hinted that he was 
only going shares with the public in his humour, — 
an equal part he was keeping to himself. 


The Rectory 


37 


“ There is not much room for suggestion in 
Sunday-schools,” snapped Maggie. 

“How do you mean by suggestion, cousin?” 
asked Agnes timidly. 

Then Patricia gave her whole smile, and did not 
keep any of it hidden for herself. 

“Everybody should be taught by suggestion, 
you know, in these days. Even the babies who 
attend the Montessori day schools. I am glad I 
did not go to school at fifteen months as modern 
babies do. ” 

“I thought babies only went to creches,” said 
Agnes dubiously. 

“I suppose suggestion is teaching people how to 
find out things for themselves, and ordinary 
teaching is showing them what other people have 
found out,” explained Patricia. 

“A rubbishy new-fangled idea,” said Maggie, 
“I have no patience with it. ” 

During this colloquy Aunt Lucy was distracted 
by breakfasting, so to speak, to an elusive tune 
which she was trying to capture. 

“We have an anthem today,” she paused to 
explain to Patricia, “and I don’t feel quite at 
home in it yet. I mean at home in all the parts, 
and you have to be if you lead the choir, as I 
do.” 

“But I thought you played the organ, Aunt.” 

“I do, my love, and lead the singing. Let me 
see, how does that go — turn, turn, turn. It is the 
G-sharp I don’t feel sure of. ” 


38 


Patricia 


“ Never mind, Mother, no one will notice it, ” 
suggested Agnes kindly. 

“I don’t approve of anthems,” Maggie re- 
marked, “they are for nothing but the glorification 
of the choir.” 

“Oh, my dear!” expostulated her mother, “no 
such thing! And, besides, the choir do want a 
little opportunity of showing off their powers from 
time to time. It is but natural. ” 

“Lucy,” said the rector so suddenly that 
Patricia quite jumped. She had forgotten that 
her uncle was there, he was so silent over his 
sausages. “ Did you put a new wick in the pulpit 
lamp?” 

“I did, dear,” replied his wife. “Indeed I put 
new wicks in all the lamps when I cleaned them 
last Monday. ” 

“But why did you clean them?” asked Patricia 
amazed. 

“ I always do the church lamps, my love. They 
and the organ and the choir are my concern, and 
Agnes does the flowers, with such taste — don’t 
you, dear? And Maggie manages the Sunday- 
school and the district visitors, and the clothing 
club.” 

“ Oh ! no, Mother. I only help you with the last 
two. We run the clothing club in conjunction 
with the Mothers’ meeting.” 

“And what does Uncle George do?” asked 
Patricia. 

“Your uncle, my love, is the rector,” explained 


The Rectory 


39 


Aunt Lucy, which to her mind perfectly answered 
the question, but not to her niece’s. 

“Well, you all seem to do a fearful lot,” ex- 
claimed Patricia. ‘ ‘ It almost makes me breathless 
to hear about it. ” 

“A country parish is no sinecure,” said Uncle 
George. “Where are my boots, Lucy? I had 
to go to church this morning in my shoes,” a 
trifle reproachfully. 

“ Does she clean the boots as well as the lamps? ” 
thought Patricia, “and why can’t he find his 
boots himself?” But her aunt had rushed off 
boot-hunting, and when she came back with them 
in triumph, there was a suspicious patch of blacking 
on her cheek, and her hands required washing. 

Patricia enjoyed going to church that morning 
very much. She put on a new black hat that was 
specially becoming, and she felt exactly like a 
person in a book, as she wandered along the 
avenue that led to the churchyard. It was like 
a picture to see the stream of village folk trailing 
up from the cottages, and like an inartistic snap- 
shot photograph when the squire and his party 
approached the chancel door. Lady Muirfield 
was one of those sweet and godly great ladies, 
who, having secured a reserved seat in the front 
row of Heaven, are able to turn their attention for 
a while to more mundane matters. Lady Muir- 
field had always been accustomed to occupying a 
seat in the front row everywhere, and she would 
not feel at home, either in this world or the next, 


40 


Patricia 


unless such a place were reserved for her. Her 
noble birth, her charming manners, her upright 
character, her simple goodness, all constituted an 
indisputable claim to such distinction. Lady 
Muirfield had once been the lovely Lady Alice 
Trevanion, who had fallen in love with and married 
an eldest son on the threshold of the schoolroom, 
and never given her parents, or her husband, one 
moment’s anxiety throughout her tranquil and 
well-ordered life. She was the mother of enough 
children to satisfy the birth rate, without unduly 
embarrassing the estates; and she was the mover 
and manager in all charitable works which were 
connected with the neighbouring parish, and town, 
and county. Her eldest daughter had married a 
rich Member of Parliament, who was a great tem- 
perance advocate and agitator, and they had a 
baby son to whom royalty — not in the direct line 
— stood sponsor. The other daughters were fresh, 
wholesome, English girls, with the somewhat 
brusque manners which usually are inherited from 
actively gracious mothers. Only one of them was 
out as yet, so Lady Muirfield was able to relax her 
attention somewhat from the suitable disposal of 
her daughters, and turn it to the more important 
settlement of her eldest son. 

Godolphin, who went by the name of Golly or 
Gollywog everywhere but at home, was one of 
those clean, cheerful young men, who never pass 
examinations unless under the pressure of almost 
surgical treatment, and who rollick through life 


41 


The Rectory 

as if it were entirely a sunny playing-field. By a 
superhuman effort he had at length been squeezed 
into the Army, and would probably make a far 
better soldier than some of the intellectual pro- 
digies who had passed into Sandhurst or Woolwich 
with flying colours. He was twenty-six in years, 
and sixteen in character, and the joy of his mother’s 
heart, who attributed far more importance to his 
curly fair hair and his regular attendance at 
church — when at Lynfield, — than to any of his 
mental attributes. 

Then came Gerald the sailor son, who had 
inherited an astonishing stock of brains, from some 
undiscoverable ancestor, and was devoting them to 
the management and understanding of submarines, 
and all the engineering interests of the Navy. 
Reggie was still at Eton and unfortunately had 
centred in himself all the family beauty, which 
ought to have belonged by rights to the girls, but, 
through some lamentable mistake, had passed 
them by. He was foolishly pretty for a boy, and 
though adoring his sweet pink and white face and 
long-lashed eyes, his mother always felt a pang 
of reproach for some irremediable carelessness or 
incompetence on her part, which had resulted in 
such a misapplication of the beauty which she, as 
a Trevanion, had imparted into the sturdier and 
plainer Muirfield race. 

Lord Muirfield himself was an extremely good- 
looking ugly man, and a soldier to his backbone. 
He was a straight, smart, honourable, evangelical 


42 


Patricia 


Christian gentleman — and he was as punctilious 
about his church attendance on Sunday mornings, 
which he regarded as spiritual drill, as he was 
about his non-attendance on Sunday evenings. 
Neither rule could by any chance possibly be 
broken in his well-ordered scheme of life. Con- 
sequently Lady Muirfield’s Sunday evenings were 
always haunted by hurry, for evening service 
was an integral part of her scheme of life, and it 
was a terrible rush to get back in time to dress for 
dinner, and take her part in the domestic routine. 

Lady Muirfield always gave one the impression 
of chivying her household to church on Sundays. 
A bevy of panting housemaids, in old-fashioned 
bonnets, (for no new-fangled servants were allowed 
at Lynfield Park,) a couple of reluctant footmen, 
and various other retainers, were all seated in the 
back seats of the Muirfield chapel before the fam- 
ily entered it themselves. Even the chauffeurs 
had silently to answer their adsum when her lady- 
ship's eye reckoned up those members of her 
household whose turn it was to have their “morn- 
ing out." In the evening the other half would not 
fail similarly to respond: a sort of “one to wash 
and one to wear" arrangement; and in this case 
Lady Muirfield kept the washing-book herself. 

Patricia watched the Muirfields enter with a true 
appreciation. She saw her ladyship settle in her 
pew as a hen in her coop, with her family around 
her. She watched the distribution of prayer 
books, hymn books, and Bibles, for their mother 


43 


The Rectory 


liked the young people to follow the lessons ; and 
she wondered also whether Lady Muirfield decided 
the subject for the silent prayer on entering, or 
whether she left that to individual taste. 

It was a beautiful country church, though the 
chancel effect was somewhat spoiled by Aunt 
Lucy’s Sunday bonnet at the organ, and by an 
irregular quaint choir in very dirty surplices, from 
under which the bird-like legs of the younger boys 
stuck out like umbrella handles, and which failed 
to button or to meet across the robuster chests of 
the basses and tenors. Aunt Lucy played a sooth- 
ing voluntary while the choir clattered into their 
places. It sounded to Patricia like a regiment of 
horses on a pavement, and she wondered how it 
could be done with only two feet apiece. But it was. 

Then the service began. Uncle George read 
slowly and impressively, as if he liked the taste 
of each word and was anxious to extract therefrom 
the fullest flavour. 

The singing was quite ambitious. Aunt Lucy 
not only played the organ, but she sang which- 
ever part seemed for the moment most in need of 
support; and was as little daunted by a bass or 
tenor effort as she was by the treble to which 
twenty years ago she was entitled. When she 
found it a little difficult to follow both the words 
and music of the Psalms at once, she stuck to the 
music, and hummed so vigorously a song, or rather 
Psalm, without words, that the loss was distinctly 
noticeable. 


44 


Patricia 


When Godolphin Muirfield caught sight of Pa- 
tricia a wave of surprise swept over his cheerful 
countenance — quickly melting into a welcoming 
smile. He tried to catch her eye, and Patricia 
being a 20th-century maiden, it was an easy catch. 
She smiled back, and his mother caught the smile. 
For a moment the good lady’s attention was 
diverted from the Psalms. She was perfectly 
aware of the fact that the Vaughans were expecting 
an orphaned niece to live with them, but Patricia’s 
appearance by no means fell in with the idea of 
what Lady Muirfield had decided that niece ought 
to be. This girl was, instead, almost immodestly 
fashionable, quite unnecessarily good-looking, and, 
of which her ladyship disapproved most of all, 
evidently on familiar terms with the son and heir 
of the house of Muirfield. Of Edward Vaughan’s 
literary distinction Lady Muirfield was profoundly 
ignorant. She moved in exalted but not brilliant 
society, and she always asked who people were, 
never what they had done. It was beginning to 
be forced upon her unwilling attention, in these 
terribly advanced days, that what people have 
is a matter that demands recognition, but this was 
another sign of the times that Lady Muirfield 
disapproved of, though occasionally, so her visit- 
ing list proved, was obliged to bow to. But 
Edward Vaughan neither was, nor had; he only 
did. And even had his writings ever fallen be- 
neath the Muirfields’ eyes, they would only have 
been disturbed and shocked and troubled thereby ; 


The Rectory 


45 


for unconventionality of act or thought or ideal, 
was absolutely beyond the pale in their view of 
life, physical, mental, and spiritual. 

“Oh, Golly!” murmured Patricia in the porch 
when service was over, “how nice it is to see you 
again!” 

In London Patricia always had found Golly 
Muirfield himself as something of a bore, though 
never his admiration of her. No woman is ever 
bored by admiration, however much she may pre- 
tend to be. And when we see a familiar face 
out of another world which we have loved and lost, 
some of our aching affection is apt to be bestowed 
upon it — not for its own sake but for that of its 
association. 

“I’d no idea you were down here,” beamed 
Godolphin, “it’s simply ripping!” and then her 
black clothes reminded him of the attendant 
circumstances. “I say, I’m awfully sorry about 
all that, you know.” 

“Of course, I know, you poor dear! you needn’t 
try to talk about it. Horrid things do happen 
sometimes, — but really very rarely, when you come 
to think of it, — and — and — I believe I am going 
to like Lynfield. ” 

“Are you? How jolly! We’ve a golf links in 
the park. ” 

“I hate golf and thick boots, and strenuous 
exercise! People talk about the busyness of town 
life, but from my experience of the country, which 
I must own is not yet twenty-four hours old, 


46 


Patricia 


it doesn’t seem in it for real busyness. Sunday 
to my relations seems a sort of spiritual Olympic 
games. I should have lost my second wind by 
service time. ” 

The boy threw back his head and laughed so 
loud that Lady Muirfield turned back. 

“Will you introduce me to Miss — your friend?” 
she said graciously. 

“Vaughan — isn’t it?” asked Golly. “I always 
called her Patricia, so I almost forget her surname.” 

A little dart of anxiety pierced his mother’s 
mind, but she still smiled sweetly, as she would 
have done on her way to the scaffold. “I am 
so pleased to meet you,” she said shaking Patricia’s 
hand, and quite unconscious that she was telling 
an untruth under the very shadow of the church 
wherein she had so fervently sung that “the mouth 
of those who speak lies shall be stopped.” But 
what the eye does not see we know from proverbial 
literature the heart cannot grieve over, so Lady 
Muirfield could not be expected even to repent of 
her greeting to Patricia; and the busy little angels 
who, unlike us mortals, can succeed in making silk 
purses out of sows’ ears — or their equivalents — 
quickly touched the tiny insincerity into a dainty 
courtesy, which did not deceive Patricia in the 
very least but still sounded nice and pleasant in 
her ears. 

“It is a little late,” Lady Muirfield murmured 
to her son; “we must be hurrying on, for some of 
the Farringfords are motoring over to luncheon.” 


The Rectory 


47 


Godolphin slightly put back his ears, as all men 
do when their womenkind try to manage or press 
them; but Patricia did not wish to make an enemy 
of Lady Muirfield, so she hastily said good-bye, 
and followed her aunt and cousins along the path. 

“Did you know the Muirfields in London?” 
asked Agnes, wondering why one girl should have 
so many more privileges than others. 

“No, only Golly. His mother is going to hate 
me, ” said Patricia with a little laugh. 

“Oh, no, my love, you are mistaken,” corrected 
her aunt, “dear Lady Muirfield would never hate 
any one. ,, 

“She’ll hate me, nevertheless,” persisted Pa- 
tricia, “because, you see, her beloved Godolphin 
won t. 


CHAPTER III 


PATRICIA IN THE PARISH 

According to Maggie’s opinion Patricia had 
had ample time to settle down at Lynfield. In 
unwilling obedience to her mother, the elder 
Miss Vaughan had for six weeks resisted her desire 
to press Patricia into parochial service, and had 
stood by, disapproving, while cartloads of furniture, 
books, and knick-knacks arrived from London, 
which transformed Patricia’s bedroom and sitting- 
room into suitable settings for her personality, 
and occupied her attention in their arrangement. 
With the overflowings Patricia had tried to recreate 
the rectory drawing-room, till that unused room 
began to have a more lived-in aspect, and to attract 
some of the rectory inhabitants from the congested 
district of the dining-room. All this was very irri- 
tating to Margaret and very attractive to Agnes. 
Aunt Lucy was glad of anything that amused her 
niece and made her feel at home ; Uncle George was 
sublimely unconscious of, and indifferent to, any 
improvement in his home as long as his easy chair 
was untouched, his papers undusted, and his wife 
at hand to fetch and carry for his every need. 

48 


Patricia in the Parish 


49 


“ Patricia, ” shouted Maggie from the hall, which 
was for her a perpetual call-office. She never went 
to find people, or gave herself any trouble to look 
for them, or to approach them sympathetically. 
She just shouted. 

Her cousin came out on to the landing, for she 
was one of the people who never shout back. 

“Do you want me?” she asked in her clear 
voice. 

“ Of course I do or I shouldn’t have called you, ” 
and Maggie gave a gruff little chuckle. “I want 
a word with you. ” 

“Then do come into my room. We can’t talk 
over the banisters.” 

“You ought to have a district,” remarked 
Maggie shortly, taking her stand upon the hearth- 
rug in a masculine manner. 

“ What sort of a district, and what for? ” 

“Oh! don’t be silly, Patricia. You know what 
I mean.” 

“I have heard of district visiting, but I have no 
idea of its significance.” 

“Then you ought to have — at your age! You 
must take a certain district and visit in it, you 
know.” 

“Then I have certainly had a district, as you 
call it, in Mayfair,” and Patricia smiled at her 
cousin. 

Maggie deigned no reply to this, but went on 
with her subject. In talking with the elder Miss 
Vaughan it never made the least difference what 


4 


50 


Patricia 


any one else said; she always went on her way 
undiverted and undisturbed, saying what she had 
to say with no reference whatever to its reception. 
It very much simplified conversation so far as she 
was concerned. 

“You had better begin at the Westons’ mill and 
take up to the Park gates. ” 

“I would rather begin at the Park gates,” sug- 
gested Patricia. “In fact I might begin this 
afternoon as I am going to play golf with Golly 
Muirfield. ” 

“You are always playing golf with him. Lady 
Muirfield said to Mother yesterday that she won- 
dered you had not more to do living at the rectory.” 

“But I am not the clergyman, so why should I 
be busy in that way?” 

“Neither is Mother,” snapped Maggie; Patricia 
thought the observation was open to doubt, 
though she did not say so. 

“But what do you want me to do if I call at the 
Westons’?” she asked her cousin. 

“Do!” exclaimed Maggie exasperated, “why 
visit, of course! 

“Just pay a call? All right.” 

“But with a good influence. You must bear 
that in mind.” 

Patricia laughed and lit a cigarette. 

“I wonder you can have the effrontery to 
smoke,” and Maggie’s face went almost purple. 
“It’s a perfect scandal!” and she bounced out 
of the room and banged the door. 


Patricia in the Parish 


5i 


How queer things were in the country! So 
many more things seemed to matter, and people 
were offended so quickly, and hardly anybody 
really laughed, and nobody ever just smiled. It 
was all very puzzling to Patricia, but she threw her 
cigarette into the fire as it seemed to upset her 
cousin so much, and slowly put on her hat, and 
picked up her golf-clubs in the hall. 

“Aunt Lucy,” she said as Mrs. Vaughan came 
through from the kitchen, laden with a pudding 
basin and two plates arranged as a box, “Maggie 
says I must have a district, so I am going to begin 
it this afternoon when I have finished golfing.” 

“Maggie is a little too zealous! But we shall 
be delighted if you will help us in our visiting, 
Patricia dear. And if you should find a mother 
using a comforter for her baby, just warn her 
against it. ” 

“Oh! I can do that to perfection. Didn’t the 
Daily Mail tell us each comforter is coated with 
seven million germs of different diseases? Is 
that what you call good influence, Aunt?” 

“Not quite that, my dear. Good influence 
is 

“Lucy, Lucy,” called the rector with the help- 
less cry of a drowning man, “I can’t find last 
month’s parish magazine, and the fire has gone 
out.” 

“Just hold these for me, my love,” and Mrs. 
Vaughan handed the crockery to Patricia, and flew 
to fulfil her lord’s behests. It took some time to 


52 


Patricia 


look for the magazine, which was found at length 
underneath the cushion of the basket chair, where 
Margaret might, if possible, have hatched it at the 
end of a few weeks* sitting; and then the sticks 
were damp so that the fire required unusual per- 
suasion to induce it to rekindle; and after that, 
Uncle George wanted a letter out of the pocket 
of his Sunday coat which was upstairs, and which 
his wife cheerfully fetched; but unfortunately it 
wasn’t the right letter, which was eventually found 
stuck in Cruden’s Concordance as a book marker ; 
— so it was a considerable time before Patricia 
and her aunt started down into the village together. 

“ And what is good influence?” repeated the girl. 

“Oh, yes! my love, I was just saying that it is 
needful to speak the word in season, to ” 

But at that moment a washerwoman rushed out 
of a cottage to beg Mrs. Vaughan to come in, and 
the good lady disappeared through a curtain of 
steam, leaving her niece very little the wiser. 

“Golly,” said Patricia as they were holing 
out on the first green, “do you know how to leave 
good influence behind you when you pay a call? 
It seems that, if you live at the rectory, you ought 
to carry a sort of bag, as a boy in a paper-chase 
does, and drop handfuls to denote your progress — 
handfuls of good influence, you know.” 

Golly grinned. “My influence is priceless,” he 
said — “beyond rubies! Haven’t you ever noticed 
it? But it’s unconscious — absolutely unconscious, 
and that is what makes it so fine. ” 


Patricia in the Parish 


53 


“The difference between real scent and a paper* 
chase! Of course you are the real thing, Golly. 
No one ever doubted it. But I’m not, so I must 
have a paper bag. And the worst thing about my 
influence, according to Margaret, is that it is 
pernicious ! I have burned a barely-lighted cigar- 
ette already today as an antidote. ” 

“That was extravagant, and extravagance is 
ultra-pernicious. You haven’t done a bit of good 
by that.” 

“I think I shall give up smoking. Maggie calls 
it a scandal. ” 

“Oh, rot! I hate that woman. She sets my 
teeth on edge like a squealing slate pencil. But 
I say,” and he looked up with rather a troubled 
face from making her tee, “you aren’t unhappy 
in that horrid hole, are you? I — I — I should 
simply hate it if you were unhappy, you know.” 

“Of course not,” said Patricia sharply — “I am 
quite as happy as under the circumstances it is 
proper to be. Don’t be silly.” For Patricia 
had seen many boys with the look that Golly 
had, in their eyes, and it was the beginning of 
trouble. 

“It is not me that’s silly,” retorted Godolphin, 
with a fine disregard of grammar, “it’s you that’s 
cross.” 

“It’s rather nice to be cross sometimes, you 
know. I have to drive myself on the curb all the 
time at the rectory,” for Patricia enjoyed sym- 
pathy so much that even prudence was thrown 


54 


Patricia 


to the wind when sympathy seemed to be es- 
caping her, — “it really is a compliment to you, 
Golly. ” 

“Well, it’s the sort I don’t care for. Why don’t 
you let off steam with the revolting Margaret, 
and be pleasant to me?” 

“ I will be pleasant, Golly! — immensely pleasant, 
if pleasantness is all you want. ” 

“I didn’t say it was all I wanted. I said it was 
something I wanted.” 

“It’s your honour; — drive, and don’t talk.” 

He drove a long ball, waited while Patricia drove 
a very short one, and then began again : 

“You might be friends, Patricia?” in an injured 
voice. 

“I am friends, — you know I am.” 

“You know perfectly well what a blundering 
ass I am at saying things, and you always had such 
an awful lot of men about in London, but you 
know equally well how awfully fond I am of you, 
Patricia, and, and, — all that,” he ended rather 
lamely. But his ruddy face had paled, and there 
was a tense look about his mouth that made a man 
of Golly. 

Patricia held out her hand. 

“You have always been a dear, ” she said, “but, 
— but I never thought of you in that way.” 
Which was distinctly untrue, as Patricia thought of 
all young men in that way. 

“Well, can’t you begin now? I’m not a boy, 
you know and — good Lord, there’s my mother!” 


Patricia in the Parish 


55 


and the tone of his voice somewhat belied his last 
statement. 

Patricia gave a nervous little laugh and dropped 
his hand, as Lady Muirfield with the patient gov- 
erness and her two younger daughters, walked 
over the hill brow to meet them. 

“A lovely afternoon,” observed the lady gra- 
ciously, and Patricia wondered how much she had 
seen; “the girls were only just saying how much 
they should like to join your game of golf. ” 

“We could have a nice foursome,” suggested 
Patricia, who felt rather elated with the excitement 
of the situation. 

“The next time you play,” continued her lady- 
ship, “but we mustn’t spoil your game now. We 
will only walk round as gallery. I remember once 
at North Berwick walking round with a gallery 
of several hundred when Ben Sayers was playing. 
Do you play golf at all, Miss Martin?” and the 
elderly governess obviously replied that she did 
not. “Mademoiselle is out today so Miss Martin 
is kindly walking out with the girls.” 

“We are hardly worth a gallery,” replied Pa- 
tricia as Golly was tramping off in search of his 
ball, “lam only learning how to play.” 

“Let me carry your clubs!” suggested Dot 
Muirfield, who had been seized with a great admira- 
tion for Patricia. She was a nice, wholesome, 
long-legged, plain little girl, and Godolphin liked 
her the best of his sisters just now, for obvious 
reasons. 


56 


Patricia 


“ I wish Lord Muirfield would play sometimes, ” 
continued his wife, walking close to Patricia’s side, 
“it would be so nice for him and Godolphin. ” 

“Delightful,” murmured the girl, knowing how 
Golly would detest it. 

“It is a great thing for there to be a spirit of 
comradeship between a father and his sons — in 
these advanced days, — and it is what my husband 
has always insisted upon.” 

“How wise of him!” 

“The feeling between children and their parents 
is not what it was when I was young. ” 

“No, I suppose not. A modern mother said to 
me the other day that she never expected rever- 
ence — she was only thankful when she heard her 
children telling someone that she was 1 a good old 
sort . 9 It was the most you could hope for 
nowadays.” 

“Oh! my children would never speak thus of 
their parents! — they are not so modern as that, 
thank God.” 

Patricia thought the thanksgiving misplaced. 

“I think the confidence between mothers and 
their daughters one of the most beautiful and 
beneficial things in the world,” continued her 
ladyship. 

“And do you also insist upon that?” asked 
Patricia with a guileless countenance. 

Lady Muirfield slightly knit her brows. The 
idea that Patricia was laughing at her did not 
cross her mind ; the idea that anybody could take 


Patricia in the Parish 


57 


such a liberty as to laugh at her had never, in 
fact, crossed her mind. It was simply unthink- 
able. But she did not like talking to Patricia, 
who somehow suggested unrestful thoughts, and 
such people she would rather avoid. The diffi- 
culty was that she did not see her way to avoid- 
ing Patricia because she could not make Godolphin 
avoid her, and in this case she considered a com- 
pany of three decidedly more desirable than that 
of two. 

“Of course I have the girls’ full confidence,” 
she said rather dubiously, “but,” she added as a 
cheering afterthought “they are very reserved.” 

“Reserve runs in families.” 

“It does in ours. I often see how dear Freda is 
longing to tell me little things, but somehow she 
cannot bring herself to put them into words. 
Putting things into words is such a difficulty to 
some people. ” 

“It is not so to me. I never had a thought or 
feeling in my life that I could not instantly put 
into words. Which is a pity seeing that I have 
no mother. It would have been better for me 
to be the reserved sort, and Freda the talkative 
one, and then she could have told you everything. ” 

“But I am sure she does — in the long run — only, 
you see, often girls have not many things to tell. ” 
And Lady Muirfield’s brow clouded once more. 

“Again I seem wasted,” suggested Patricia, 
“for I have had a good many. Perhaps Dot and 
Diana will have more to tell you bye and bye. ” 


58 


Patricia 


“Are you very busy just now in the parish ?” 
continued Lady Muirfield somewhat haughtily, 
withdrawing from any possible discussing of her 
family with this girl, whom she was beginning to 
find most tiresome. 

“I am not at all busy in the parish, ” replied 
Patricia calmly, “why should I be? Is anything 
happening just now to make me so? I haven’t 
heard of it. ” 

“There is always work to be done.” 

“I suppose so, but then it is your parish, you 
see, andit is not mine. ” 

“But surely you live in it now. What other 
parish are ybu connected with?” 

“ I seem rather like John Wesley in that respect, 
the world is my parish. ” 

Lady Muirfield wasd^affled. She always shrank 
from the mention of John Wesley’s name, which, 
by the way, she pronounced Wezley, just as she 
shrank from the mention of Bathsheba or Susannah 
or any of those characters who are depicted in 
Holy Writ, but yet were not what she called 
“quite nice.” She felt that the great revivalist 
would certainly be mentioned in the religious 
history that was being compiled of more modern 
times, but nevertheless she disapproved of his ac- 
tions, she had no intimacy with his followers, and 
she was rather shy of speaking about him at all. 
And then also the way Patricia had said “your 
parish” slightly disconcerted her. Just as if she 
lived at the rectory rather than at the big house. 


Patricia in the Parish 


59 


And yet she could not contradict her, because 
Lynfield was the parish in which Lynfield Park 
was situated, though of course the parish work 
lay outside her obligations. She blessed it un- 
failingly, she approved of it, and gave it the 
privilege of her patronage, but of course she could 
not do it. 

“I hoped you would have been a help to your 
aunt and cousins, ” she remarked reproachfully. 

‘ ‘ I am afraid that was a misplaced hope. I don’t 
understand their work, and really I don’t quite 
see why I should. People have their own work, 
don’t you think?” and Patricia lifted her ball, and 
a clod of earth with it, in the direction of a little 
red flag near which Godolphin’s ball lay like a 
mushroom on the green. 

“What is yours then?” asked her ladyship a 
trifle impatiently, for she was not enjoying her 
tramp across the uneven grass of the park. 

“Pen-work, I suppose; I have always written 
off and on. I am off now but the on time will 
come again. Soon, I hope!” 

“I should make it come if I were you. An idle 
life is not good for the young. ” 

“If you were Lady Muirfield, you would 
know that you couldn’t make it. I only wish I 
could.” 

“If I had had time I should like to have writ- 
ten,” said Lady Muirfield, as if lack of time had 
been the only preventive of her literary career. 

‘ 1 Novels ? ’ ’ asked Patricia. 1 ‘ Modern novels ? ’ ' 


6o 


Patricia 


“Certainly not. I shrink in horror from the 
novel of today, and never read it. No — I should 
like to write little helpful books for everyday use. ” 

“Cookery books, do you mean?” 

“Cookery books! I know nothing whatever 
about cooking” ; and as there were five kept in the 
kitchen at the Park her ladyship was justified in 
her ignorance. “I meant little books of spiritual 
help.” 

* ‘ Christian cachets ? ’ ’ suggested Patricia. 1 1 That 
would be a good title.” 

“ I always give your dear aunt one of the kind at 
Christmas, and she has often told me what a help 
they are to her.” 

“Then I should certainly write one if I were 
you.” 

“I repeat I have not time. My life is a very 
busy one. You hardly understand.” 

“And you are giving me a whole afternoon of 
it — how kind! But, dear Lady Muirfield, don’t 
let me trespass on your kindness. This course is 
really a very long one, and I play so slowly. I 
wonder your son is not out of all patience with 
teaching me — but he is his mother’s son, and — 
very kind. ” 

“Shan’t you be tired, mother?” asked Golly 
anxiously as they started on the next hole. 

“I enjoy the exercise. Come on, girls,” and 
she linked her arm in her daughter Diana’s, and 
this time accompanied Godolphin. Dot ran after 
Patricia, and Miss Martin panted behind. So the 


Patricia in the Parish 


61 


round was at length completed and Lady Muir- 
field invited Patricia back to tea. Under her 
son’s stern eye she dared not do otherwise. But 
Patricia refused. She did not feel like eating her 
ladyship’s bread just then. And, besides, she 
remembered she had promised to call at the mill, 
so she slowly walked off by herself. 

Patricia had a good deal to think about. The 
main thing was that Golly Muirfield was going to 
ask her to marry him. She knew in London how 
much he liked her, but she had not meant to let 
him say so then, because she did not in the least 
want to marry him. But circumstances alter cases, 
and now that Patricia was tied down to a life she 
really detested, among uncongenial people, and in 
still more uncongenial poverty, she was not at all 
sure that she would not like to marry Golly ’s 
position and share his wealthy and attractive lot. 
Moreover, she was sure she would like to triumph 
over Lady Muirfield’s determination to separate 
her from Golly, and she was beginning to think 
that, after all, such a nice, clean, cheerful boy as he 
was might not be a bad husband, for he was one 
she could never be ashamed of; and also she felt 
the respect which all women feel for power, whether 
it be the power of the personality or the power of 
the purse. Golly would be a good match, and 
Patricia loved appreciation more than anything 
in the world, and she was not unmindful of the 
world-old truth that “so long as thou doest well 
for thyself men will speak good of thee.” There- 


62 


Patricia 


fore Golly’s chances were mending as she walked 
across the park. Lady Muirfield had provided the 
seccotine. 

Patricia had always meant to marry for love, — 
but then she had always meant to live in London 
and have a good time. Things were turning out 
differently. “The worst of it is,” she thought to 
herself, “if I don’t marry for love I shall always 
think it would have been so much nicer than it 
really would, and therefore I shall never be able to 
prove to myself how much better it is to marry for 
money and position and everything I want. Of 
course I wouldn’t marry a man who didn’t adore 
me, but then Golly would. He is like an exposed 
film even now — he only needs developing. And 
it would be very nice to be mistress of Lynfield 
Park, and the house in Cadogan Square. It 
wouldn’t be quite so nice to be the wife of Lady 
Muirfield’s son, but it would be a distinct triumph 
to be so, and triumph tastes nice enough to take 
away the taste of a dose of the horridest medicine. 
Of course Lord Muirfield is not nearly so old as I 
should like him to be, and I should have to wait 
an immense time for Lynfield — but it would be 
much more amusing with Golly’s regiment than 
at the rectory, though I am not quite so sure 
whether I should like the regiment part. I never 
know what to talk about to soldiers — they make 
me feel like an Englishman abroad — they don’t 
know my language and that is so stupid and dull 
of them. But then the regiment might be in an 


Patricia in the Parish 


63 


amusing place. It would be nice, of course, to be 
an orphan-in-law, but you can’t have everything 
in this world! • Indeed you have to be thankful 
if you get anything — and Lynfield and a coronet 
are a good deal, with the coal-fields away at 
Muirfield thrown in. Dear Golly!” and Patricia’s 
heart felt quite comfortably warm. She wished 
he were older and cleverer, but time would help 
in the one, and possibly she might help in the other. 
Anyway it was worth thinking about. Patricia 
had always loved planning to do a thing which she 
was perfectly sure she never would; and, besides, 
some mental or emotional excitement was abso- 
lutely necessary to not only her well-being, but her 
existence. And the underlying sureness, too, was 
beginning to wear thin. Lynfield Park was so 
much more attractive than Lynfield Rectory — 
while in London the social atmosphere of 12 
Cadogan Square had been intensely dull when 
compared with that of 20 Princes Gate. 

During the past month Patricia had seen a great 
deal of Golly — he was the only point of interest to 
her in this new life, and the consummate coldness 
of county society had fired her with a passion for 
intimacy with someone, Golly being the only pos- 
sible someone. Now it is much more difficult to 
keep one’s feelings at a standstill in the country 
than in the town, and they are much more apt to 
get out of hand altogether. For things grow in 
the country which are manufactured in towns; 
and we can fix the form of any manufacture, but 


6 4 


Patricia 


we cannot limit the growth of that which is alive. 
In London Patricia had relegated Golly to a 
suitable place among her boy and men friends, 
and she had decided exactly how much, and how 
little, she meant to like him; and, had she re- 
mained in London, her decision would have held 
good. But at Lynfield she was lonely, for nobody 
seemed to want to see her or to know her, and, more 
than that, she was starved for lack of appreciation 
such as she had lived upon ever since she grew up. 
She did not hunt, and in Leicestershire there is not 
very much else that is considered worth doing. 
Instead of bewailing her inadequacy in this respect 
she frankly detested horses, and regarded them as 
vicious beasts with murderous intentions. To go 
to a meet bored her almost to tears, but she 
resolved to go from time to time just to fire her 
sense of thankfulness that she was only looking 
on — not actually hunting. Local society also 
bored her because of its lack of conversational 
brilliance and intellectual depth. To county 
creeds she was as indifferent as to the Thirty- 
nine Articles ; and the half -smiling contempt with 
which her father and his friends had regarded 
commonplace society and conventional religion, 
had also borne fruit in her heart, and rendered her 
incapable of enjoying, or even understanding, any- 
thing of that which goes to the making of a typical 
English country village, with its cottages, its farms, 
its Rectory and its Hall. Therefore Patricia was 
hungry — desperately hungry. She felt she should 


Patricia in the Parish 


65 


have died of hunger if it had not been for Golly, 
whose simple sandwiches of devotion tasted far 
nicer than they ever did when she was fed up with 
admiration in town. 

‘‘He really is rather a dear!” she repeated to 
herself, as she walked up to the Westons’ mill, and 
knocked her knuckles sore against the massive 
old door. Patricia heard the clattering of the 
servant girl, as she emerged from a distant kitchen, 
swelling in sound as she reached the front door, 
like the approach of the Guards on a gramophone. 

“Step forward kindly,” urged the buxom 
maiden, and ushered Patricia into a charming old- 
fashioned parlour, where the beams were of oak 
and the window-seat wide and hospitable-looking, 
and the old china on the chimney-piece- good and 
rare. But the furniture was excruciating, and the 
centre table divided into sections like a boy’s cap, 
on each of which reposed an unreadable book. 
The atmosphere was close and smelt of mildew, 
for the family dwelt elsewhere. 

“Good-afternoon, Miss Vaughan,” said kindly 
Mrs. Weston, her face beaming with the true wel- 
come of the villager. “It is very pleased that we 
are to see you, and take it kindly of you to call. ” 

“I wanted so much to know you,” said Patricia 
mendaciously, “for I am quite a neighbour now.” 

“And among the best of them, for there’s none 
like the rector and Mrs. Vaughan, — no, not in 
Leicestershire ! ” 

“I suppose not;” though Patricia imagined that 


5 


66 


Patricia 


every country rectory was inhabited by their 
exact counterparts. 

“You’ll have a cup of tea with us, I hope? — the 
kettle is just on the boil. You won’t mind coming 
into the breakfast-room?” 

“Of course not. This is a dear old house,” 
said Patricia graciously; “the sort of house that 
is in a book. ” 

“There was an account of it once in the news- 
paper. It was during the election, and the candi- 
date stopped here for dinner one noon. This is 
Mr. Weston. My dear, here is Miss Vaughan — 
the young lady from the rectory. ” 

The miller was sitting by the fire in a quaint 
sunny little room overlooking the village street. 
He wore his hat, and he held out his hand to 
Patricia without moving in his seat. 

“Glad to see you,” he said genially. “Is tea 
ready, mother?” 

The miller’s daughter was next presented. She 
was a sweet-looking, shy, fat girl with a complexion 
of milk and roses, and soft brown hair in which 
some golden gleams were well-nigh hidden. Her 
dress was simple and fresh and countrified in the 
true sense of the word. For the great charm of 
the Weston family was that it never pretended to 
be, or to have, anything which was not absolutely 
true; and therefore, with all their ignorance of 
etiquette and all their homeliness of habit, the 
miller and his family were never for one instant 
vulgar. He and his forefathers had been millers 


Patricia in the Parish 


67 


at Lynfield since long before the creation of many 
important families, and each succeeding generation 
had exactly lived up to its level, never one shade 
above or below it. In these days of progress and 
ambition and social development there was some- 
thing singularly refreshing in the Westons’ outlook 
on life. But Patricia, who was neither old enough 
nor wise enough to see below the surface, thought 
them both boring and absurd. 

There was profound silence while Mrs. Weston 
poured out the tea. Her husband sat beside her, 
having hitched his faded armchair round from 
the fire into that position, and placed his hat upon 
the floor beside him. Now Patricia never could 
regard a silence except as a calamity, so she felt 
bound to break it, even though she knew she 
should be speaking in another language. 

“Lynfield is a pretty village,” she remarked in 
the laboured way in which Ollendorf might be 
reproduced. 

“Lynfield is the most important village in Eng- 
land,” exclaimed the miller enthusiastically. “I 
was born in it, and I have lived in it for fifty-eight 
years, and I was married in it twenty-five years 
ago, and my dear mother died in it and was buried 
in this churchyard.” This latter recollection so 
upset Mr. Weston that he was reduced to tears, 
and Patricia felt her first subject had been an un- 
fortunate one, though it seemed harmless enough 
to start with. But not only did the tears relieve 
Mr. Weston’s feelings, they also unloosed his 


68 


Patricia 


tongue, and he dilated at length on the virtues of 
the dowager Mrs. Weston. 

“There's nothing like a good mother — you take 
my word for it. Who taught me all the good I’ve 
ever known, but my dear old mother? Who 
taught me to keep the Sabbath, and to support the 
British and Foreign Bible Society, and to do my 
duty in my own station of life, I should like to 
know?” with a challenging glance at poor Patricia, 
who had not the slightest wish to offer a contrary 
opinion. “Why, — my dear old mother. You’ll 
never know how much you owe your mother till 
it’s too late to tell her so. ” 

“Mine died when I was born,” said Patricia. 

“That accounts for it. I thought there was 
something at the back of it all along. ” 

“At the back of what?” she asked. 

Here Mrs. Weston tried to divert her husband 
from the matter in hand. She had well-bred 
instincts. 

“I am sure Miss Vaughan will think the neigh- 
bourhood prettier even than the village, when she 
sees more of it. Have you been away up on to the 
hills yet? It is beyond them that Great Muirfield 
lies, and the collieries have taken away all the 
beauty of the country there; but along the 
river — ” she was continuing hurriedly when her 
husband broke in : 

“I am a plain man” he persisted, “and I pride 
myself upon speaking the truth, as I’ve always 
done from my mother’s knee.” Patricia was too 


Patricia in the Parish 


69 


ignorant to detect the beauty in that softening of 
the rough miller’s voice whenever he mentioned 
his mother’s name. She was clever enough to see 
below the surface of some things; she saw their 
artistic values and the ingredient of humour, and 
many attractive subtleties which lie a little lower 
than ordinary eyes can see, or conventional wits 
appreciate; but she was blind to the real depths, 
just as her brilliant father had been blind before 
her. 

“Do speak the truth to me,” she urged with a 
touch of contemptuous curiosity, of which Mrs. 
Weston was conscious. Her husband was not. 
And, moreover, he enjoyed speaking the unbridled 
truth. It gave him a feeling of self-satisfaction, 
and also did his neighbour good — therefore, to his 
gauge of things, it was desirable all round. 

“You see you’re a bit of a puzzle to us village 
folk.” 

* ‘ Why ? ’ ’ asked Patricia. 

“For one thing you’re not such a regular church- 
goer as we expect from the rectory. ” 

“I thought I had been most Sundays.” 

“Only in the morning. And it’s twice a day 
as ought to be the rule in every home in England. 
Why, my dear mother went to church morning and 
evening, till she had to be took in a wheeled chair, 
and she carried her babies with her before they 
were weaned. * If I can’t feed my children in the 
Lord’s House it’s a poor lookout,’ she used to 
say ; and she did, too. Aye, and it was the milk 


70 


Patricia 


of the Word they sucked in along with the other. 
I’ve loved my Bible ever since I could love any- 
thing. Talk about the rising generation — where’s 
it going to I should like to know?” and the miller 
upset some stewed pears in his vehemence — 
“what with its disregard of the Sabbath, and the 
Bible, and duty to parents, and touching their 
hats with a civil word to their employers? I don’t 
hold with new-fangled ways. They’re the Devil’s 
ways, you mark my words, and breaking the 
Sabbath’s the safest send-off on the Devil’s 
way.” 

“But surely it can’t matter to any one else 
whether I go once or twice to church?” 

“Not matter to any one else!” and Mr. Weston 
fairly gasped, “why everything that’s done at the 
rectory matters to the whole village! There’s 
little else talked about in Lynfield, when we’re 
done with each other, and that’s generally by tea- 
time.” 

“I shouldn’t have thought the rectory and its 
inmates would have been very interesting topics 
of conversation.” 

“You’re not village bred, you see, else you’d 
know different. You never go in or out but what 
we know it, and we draw our own conclusions, as 
it were.” 

“Are those always true, too?” 

“ We’re not far out in Lynfield ! Watch a man’s 
goings in and out from our window, and you can 
judge pretty right as to the sort of man he is.” 


Patricia in the Parish 


7i 


“Then what else besides the church going?” 
asked Patricia riding for a fall. 

“Well, you’ve not been down in the village 
according to what we think is right from the rec- 
tory. Never given the old folk the time o’ day, 
or passed a remark on the weather. ” 

“ But I didn’t know any of them. ” 

“All folks know each other in Lynfield. You 
can’t help it, even if you want to. ” 

“But Miss Vaughan hasn’t had much time, 
Thomas,” broke in Mrs. Weston, hot — literally 
hot in the cheeks — for a change of subject. 

“And there was a case of fever I heard, too,” 
urged Patricia. 

“And what of that? There have been cases of 
fever up and down, ever since I was a boy. And 
smallpox, too, in the good old days. And I was 
never any the worse for it — nor my wife here — 
were you, mother?” 

“I never heard of such a thing as its not being 
removed,” continued Patricia. “I thought all 
fever cases were instantly removed.” 

“Not in Lynfield,” and there was pride in the 
miller’s voice. ‘‘I don’t hold with all this non- 
sense about infection. Them as has got to have 
fever ’ll have it, in my humble opinion,” with 
an accent which indicated that the adjective 
“humble” was the merest fagon de parler ; “and 
what’s the use of spending the rural district rates 
in such rubbish as going against Providence? My 
dear mother used to say as the Lord gave and the 


72 


Patricia 


Lord took away, and it was no use setting up 
ourselves in opposition to Him.” 

“But surely she didn’t think He gave scarlet 
fever?” 

“She know’d He did, and that was enough for 
her; and what was enough for my mother is 
enough for me.” 

“Would you do away with doctors, then? If 
you don’t think it right to prevent disease, you 
might also not think it right to try and cure it. ” 

“There have always been doctors, so let ’em 
continue, I say. It’s an honourable profession. 
My mother said St. Luke was a physician until the 
Lord called him — and folks who aren’t called have 
to do something in these days, so let ’em be doctors. 
But as for me and my household, ” waxing eloquent 
into Bible language, “we will take what the Lord 
sends, and trouble no doctors, nor dentists either, 
for the matter of that. ” And it was obvious that 
the Westons lived up to the latter half of their 
creed. 

The mention of dentists seemed to strike a chord 
of remembrance in Mrs. Weston’s thoughts. 

“You told me the dentist question was up before 
the board today. What was decided?” 

“It has come to something nowadays for 
teeth to be considered in workhouses!” exclaimed 
her husband with fine scorn. “Teeth indeed! — 
why, what’s to be between ’em is enough for the 
Poor Law to deal with, I should have thought. 
But, could you believe it? they actually want to 


Patricia in the Parish 


73 


send the workhouse children to a dentist! It 
shows what the times are coming to. Here am 
I, a man of fifty years and odd, and I once paid 
sixpence to have a tooth stuffed. And what’s 
good enough for me is good enough for the work- 
house children, I should think!” 

Patricia didn’t feel equal to fighting a dental 
campaign, so she changed the subject tactfully. 

“You have a nice church here, too,” and she 
looked towards Mrs. Weston. But the miller 
meant to conduct the conversation, and his good 
wife waited for him to lead off, as all good wives 
should, but not quite all of them do. Indeed it is 
the part of a good wife to give her husband a 
congenial lead, provided that no one else does ; and 
then, when he is safely started, to supply the neces- 
sary running comments, and so guide him up to 
his conversational or anecdotal heights, which she 
already knows so well. Much is said about 
woman’s loquacity, but, as a rule, a woman, after 
she is married, generally talks because her husband 
is silent. When first he comes in after a day’s work 
she asks him what is the news, and of course he 
replies there is not any. When she enquires what 
he has been doing he answers nothing special, and 
whom he has seen, and he says nobody. Thus 
it would lead an outsider to imagine he had spent 
the day in a monastic cell instead of in business, 
or at a profession, or in Parliament, or in any 
other strenuous and crowded occupation. But his 
wife understands that he is tired and hungry, and 


74 


Patricia 


so, when he asks her what she has done that day, she 
is able for quite an hour, and longer if necessary, 
to talk about a hundred and one things that will 
divert him, and some that will amuse him, and 
all that will interest him, in a quiet, restful way, 
even though she may not have been outside 
her garden gates. But on the occasions when a 
man will talk, how proudly does his wife — and 
not necessarily only the old-fashioned ones — 
listen, leading the laughter at the humorous halts, 
and almost following him with moving lips, as when 
she hears her children recite their pieces of poetry. 
And a man, whether he be great or small, is yet 
made largely of the material which we call man. 

“The church is grand!” exclaimed Mr. Weston, 
“and it has been my good fortune, never to wor- 
ship under a clergyman that I didn’t like. I shall 
be a dying man before I give up going to my church 
here. Why, as I sit in the old pew and hear the 
old words, I shut my eyes and fancy my head is 
leaning once again against my mother’s arm, ” and 
his voice broke. “Wives may be good as gold — 
I’ve had one of the very best, — but nothing in this 
life’ll ever feel like your mother’s arm round you. 
Aye, but you’ve missed the best thing in the world. 
I’m downright sorry for you. And when the folks 
say this and that, I’ve got an answer that’ll clinch 
it once for all — I’ll tell ’em you lost your mother 
when you were born and consequently it’s a 
wonder you’re as good as you are. ” 

Patricia hardly knew whether to express thanks 


Patricia in the Parish 


75 


or not for such chequered championship, so she 
asked Mrs. Weston to show her the garden. She 
felt almost stiff with the quantity she had eaten 
of scones and jam and cake and cream, and as if 
the open air would be very refreshing after the hot 
tea-steamed room, and a little exercise more than 
desirable. And from the miller’s wife she learned 
much of the lore of Lynfield, as they strolled 
through the old-fashioned garden, and watched 
the mill-stream foaming with importance over its 
successful manipulation of the great wheel; and 
then through the orchard all powdered white from 
the flour dust like some gentle and abiding hoar 
frost which never nipped. And Mrs. Weston 
showed her with pride the stock of turkeys, which 
it was her recreation to rear and fatten and tend 
through all the dangers of their delicate constitu- 
tions. And as they walked Patricia listened to 
the local history of every cottage and family and 
individual, and pretended to know to whom Mrs. 
Weston was referring, and to be interested in their 
welfare. But all the time she had that feeling 
again that she was a girl in a book, and none of it 
was real. As she at length went slowly back to 
the rectory she suddenly remembered Maggie’s 
injunction, and knew that she had failed to fulfil 
it. She was sure she had left no good influence 
behind her, and she laughed at the omission. 
'‘I feel much more as if I had been apprenticed to 
a miller, and served my apprenticeship, and not 
earned a very good character at that. I can’t say 


76 


Patricia 


that village life appeals to me. I’d much rather 
have had tea with Golly, if only Lady Muirfield 
hadn’t invited me.” And then the warm glow 
came back again inside her, and she began to think 
that Golly understood her as well as loved her. 
“Dear Golly!” she said once more as she ran up 
the garden steps. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE LIMITATIONS OF LYNFIELD 

A FEW days later Maggie Vaughan rushed into 
the rectory with the exciting information 
that the Muirfields had migrated to London a full 
fortnight before they had arranged to do so. This 
was manifestly mysterious, and Maggie believed 
it was because the great Missionary Bazaar at the 
Albert Hall demanded the presence of Lady 
Muirfield in Easter week. 

Mrs. Vaughan thought that perhaps some of the 
Muirfield, or more likely the Trevanion, col- 
laterals had threatened a birth, a marriage, or a 
death, none of which events Lady Muirfield 
would be content to miss. The rector thought 
that Lord Muirfield was serving on a Royal 
Commission which was meeting for the first time 
the next week, and Agnes imagined that Freda 
must have had an offer, though as to why that 
should alter all the family arrangements she did 
not seem very clear. Patricia said nothing, but an 
angry expression lurked in her eyes and draped it- 
self round her hard little mouth. 

“We shall miss them,” continued Aunt Lucy, 
77 


78 


Patricia 


“for it is always such a strength to me to feel that 
dear Lady Muirfield is among us.” 

“ I don’t see why it should be,” argued her niece, 
“for you do all the work and the most that Lady 
Muirfield does is to approve of it. And it seems 
to me that her approval is a most unimportant 
factor in life.” 

“It is very important and helpful to me, my 
love. When you are as old as I am, you will feel 
the need of such approval. When I was first 
married I was so enthusiastic in my work that I 
thought I could do and manage it all by myself, — 
but I needed a guiding hand, and that is just what 
a great lady is able to give. Her opinion is of 
weight because of her position, and when that 
position is filled by a good Christian woman, then 
her influence is most wide and her approval most 
strengthening. ” 

“Her disapproval strengthens me much more,” 
said Patricia. “It simply braces my will-power to 
steel. She is absolutely forcing me to marry Golly, 
even though I am not at all sure that I want him. ” 

“Oh, my love!” exclaimed her aunt. “You 
have such a startling way of saying things! I 
suppose it is just your way, but it seems to me 
almost — almost indelicate, if I may say so.” 

Patricia laughed. “I suppose in old days you 
never mentioned love affairs or pains inside. 
But now your lovers and your appendix are public 
property, so to speak. Everybody talks about 
them.” 


The Limitations of Lynfield 79 


“We don’t in the country, ” said Maggie sharply, 
“and I am surprised at you, with your refined 
appearance, being so coarse.” 

“Gently, gently, girls!” said Mrs. Vaughan 
soothingly; “we are, perhaps, behind the times a 
little at Lynfield, and I confess I do not understand 
modern young people. They are so different from 
what we used to be. ” 

“The fashion and cut have altered, aunt, that 
is all. Don’t you see how for several generations 
the fashion of thought was like that of dress during 
several bygone seasons? Only a little alteration 
was needed — the sleeves made bigger or smaller — 
to make a last year’s dress quite wearable. So in 
thought our grandmothers’ opinions only wanted 
a little modernizing to fit our mothers. But 
suddenly the whole fashion has completely changed, 
and nothing would make a gored skirt possible 
today. You have to get everything new and cut 
quite differently. And that is just how thought 
has changed in cut, and ideas have to be adjusted 
quite afresh. But it is of the same material, just 
as the frocks are the same serge and silk and linen. 
Young people aren’t different in material, only in 
cut.” 

“I never thought of it like that, my love. 
Doubtless you are right. ” 

“For instance every love affair has always been 
developed by opposition. Only in the old days 
the girls who were forbidden to marry the man they 
wanted, obeyed; but the love went deeper and 


8o 


Patricia 


generally affected their lungs. In these days, they 
don’t obey, and the love grows up stronger and 
affects their tempers; — but the principle is the 
same. I don’t blame Lady Muirfield for not 
understanding modern young people; I blame 
her for not understanding human nature, which 
is unchangeable, and that is where she is such a 
fool.” 

“My dear, my dear! I don’t like to hear any 
one called a fool — least of all dear Lady Muirfield. ” 
Then with an adroit change of subject: — “And 
I certainly am surprised at the books girls read 
nowadays. We had an address on that at the 
last Mothers’ Union, and really after Canon Ken- 
nedy had spoken, I felt as if I’d never dare let a 
new book come into my house again. So many 
seem pernicious.” 

“Just as I felt after reading the account of some 
medical conference — as if I’d never dare enter a 
first-class carriage again, because the average one 
contains the germs of every known disease. But I 
do think there are some escapes, and you surely 
believe in miracles, don’t you, aunt? Well, I am 
an illustration. I lived upon a comforter when I 
was a baby, as my father could not endure hearing 
a child cry, and I have escaped the seven million 
germs — at least as far as I can tell. Probably 
they fed on each other instead of on me — therefore 
seven millions seem safer than one.” 

“I suppose you have read everything, cousin?” 
asked Agnes wistfully. 


The Limitations of Lynfield 81 

“That is rather a large order! But I’ve read 
most of the modem pernicious novels, if you mean 
that.” 

“ They must have injured you,” declared Maggie. 
“Canon Kennedy said they always did.” 

“Or else like the seven million germs they fed 
on each other instead of on me. Personally I 
never felt the worse for any book I have read.” 

“Too hardened!” muttered Maggie. 

“Besides, I think people make a big mistake in 
what they think is pernicious. Realism isn’t ne- 
cessarily so, because we live in an utterly unre- 
served age, and everything is put into words, and 
the things which used to be hidden from the wise 
and prudent are now revealed to babes. But just 
knowing about things isn’t pernicious.” 

“Canon Kennedy said it was,” persisted Maggie. 

“Then I don’t agree with him.” 

“My love, we always agree with the dignitaries 
of the Church,” pleaded Aunt Lucy, “on every 
subject.” 

“Well, I don’t, on any. I consider them a fusty 
lot, and hopelessly behind the times.” 

Patricia had never talked like this before. But 
she was rasped and raw, and hating life at the 
rectory more than ever now Golly had gone. It 
was horrible to her to realize that the season was 
beginning, and that she would take no part in it. 
The excitement of novelty at Lynfield had quite 
worn off, and the interest of a lover, which will 
always keep a woman engrossed, was now removed ; 


6 


82 


Patricia 


and life seemed insupportable. Patricia was 
under the impression that she was indifferent to 
luxury and physical comforts, until they were 
removed, and then she found she detested, with 
an absurd bitterness, common gravies and lumpy 
mince and stodgy puddings. She would have 
given anything for a cup of good coffee, but the 
rectory coffee was pale tortoise-shell in colour 
and tasted of tin. She sickened for the rich smell 
of warm, flower-filled rooms, and longed for the 
feel of an evening frock ; but evening meals at the 
rectory were sketchy, and snatched, and partaken 
of hurriedly in hats and boots, as the business of 
each day seemed to culminate, rather than abate, 
at seven-thirty. 

There is an idea that the possession of money 
makes people think too much about it; but it is 
really the absence of money which achieves that 
undesirable end. Patricia had never heard money 
spoken of by the brilliant people who congregated 
in her father’s house. The massing of it was of no 
interest to any of them, the possession of it no 
passport to their charmed circle. It was just a 
necessity up to a certain point, and there the 
recognition of it ceased. To Patricia her purse 
was as important, and as unimportant, as her 
pocket-handkerchief. She never thought about 
either of them because they were always there. 
But when down at Lynfield she was suddenly 
confronted with the wear and tear of essential 
economy, then she began for the first time in her 


The Limitations of Lynfield 83 


life to think about money, and to want it, and to 
put even an undue value upon it — a value which 
was in danger of costing her her heart and life; 
for if she married Godolphin Muirfield it would 
be mainly for what his money would buy. The 
countless little economies of everyday life, such 
as the Vaughans were bound to observe, began to 
chafe her unreasonably — and the fret for physi- 
cal luxury is a most unworthy and demoralizing 
thing. It shut Patricia’s eyes to the many touch- 
ing and tender little traits which lit up her aunt’s 
character, and which turned some of her uncle’s 
natural, manly selfishness into a noble, if unat- 
tractive, self-sacrifice. In her impatience of, and 
distaste for, the very simple life of the rectory, 
she failed to perceive that luxury and comfort 
might have been very much to be desired by a 
couple who were getting on in years, and had none 
of the resilience of youth, and were moreover 
tired out with the toil of nearly half a century; 
but that they were content to live without it 
because they had found something better. In 
her craving for society she ignored the deeper love 
for humanity which drew her aunt with as much 
interest into the cottage as into more attractive 
homes; and she was becoming less kind-hearted, 
because kind-heartedness at the rectory was dres- 
sed in such drab and homely garments that none 
even observed its presence. All the hardships and 
self-denials and untiring work which were matters 
of course at Lynfield Rectory irritated her temper, 


84 


Patricia 


and blunted even her artistic faculties, which ought 
not to have passed any touch of beauty by. But 
who can appreciate subtle beauties who has the 
toothache dragging him down from the ideal? 
And Patricia had quite as nasty an ache in all her 
superficial feelings, unworthy though perhaps they 
were. A tooth has little dignity, and not much 
beauty, when it stands alone, but it can hurt so 
keenly and persistently that for the time all nobler 
and worthier matters are forgotten. So did the 
ache in Patricia’s personality caused by want of 
appreciation, as well as lack of luxury, hurt so 
much just then that she could only for the time 
attend to the ache, and, as is the way of ordinary 
toothache, it made her petulant, perverse, and 
sharp. 

“Then do you not think that any modem litera- 
ture is pernicious?” asked Aunt Lucy, feeling that 
literature was a safer theme than the Church. 

“Yes, I do, but not the books that tell us too 
much truth, but those which tell us too little.” 

“How do you mean, cousin?” asked Agnes, to 
whom Patricia’s mind and manner and appearance 
were an unending source of wonder and delight. 

“Isn’t there a text somewhere in the Bible 
about putting bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter? 
Well, that’s what I mean. I don’t care a rap how 
vivid and realistic the description of the bitter may 
be, nor how sugary even the analysis of the sweet ; 
what seems to me pernicious is telling young people 
by fiction that the one is the other, which is a lie, 


The Limitations of Lynfield 85 


and therefore false to art, as well as bad for 
morals.” 

“ Bitter is bitter, of course,” declared Maggie. 

“But many have to taste it before they know 
it for themselves,” said her mother. “Patricia 
is quite right, ” and she laid her hand gently upon 
her restive niece, “that the greatest harm lies in 
tempting young people to taste it by telling them 
it is sweet. I am glad you quoted the Bible, dear. 
It is so true and beautiful. What a wealth lies 
in the Psalms, for instance!” 

“I prefer Proverbs,” remarked Patricia, “they 
are so full of humour. ” 

“I never saw anything humorous in them, I am 
glad to say,” exclaimed Maggie reprovingly, “nor 
in any other part of the Bible. ” 

“When you are my age, Patricia, you will want 
something more than humour,” said her aunt, 
“and then may you find it, as you will, if you 
look in the right place. ” 

All that day Patricia was in a state of suppressed 
irritation. She was naturally even-tempered, and 
also she had been brought up in the belief that 
temper is as unattractive and disfiguring to a 
woman as any physical blemish or even deformity. 
Once she had seen a man completely lose his temper 
at her father’s house, and she would never forget 
the contemptuous surprise with which the refined 
and fastidious man of letters regarded this ugly 
and feverish exhibition. She even saw the temper 
wither under it, as a strong plant at the touch of 


86 


Patricia 


frost — and the conversation drooped as a border 
of dahlias on the first winter morning, and was 
left crushed and limp and torn. But as Patricia's 
character had been entirely made and moulded 
from the outside and never touched within, it 
was only the outward, ill-bred display of temper 
which she minded, and not the spirit from which 
it springs; and as long as that spirit was confined 
to the promptings of satire, or cynicism, or any 
attribute with a polished surface, she never even 
thought of attempting its extinction. 

“ Cousin, ” began Agnes with a blushing face 
and hesitating manner, “should you mind if I 
walked down with you to the sewing-party? 
Mother and Maggie have gone on, to do some cut- 
ting out.” 

“Of course not. I suppose we ought to be start- 
ing now.” And Patricia proceeded to put on her 
hat at just that angle which makes all the difference 
between dowdiness and style. 

“I don't want to be impertinent, you know,” 
continued Agnes, redder than ever, “but I am so 
interested about you and Godolphin Muirfield. ” 
“That is very nice of you. ” 

“Oh, no! It is because there is something so 
wonderful to me in a love-affair. ” 

“There isn’t anything very wonderful in Golly's. 
He has always liked me, and now down here we've 
neither had anything else to do, and, of course, the 
thing has grown. And his mother is such a goose 
that she is just driving us both into being in earnest. 


The Limitations of Lynfield 87 

I wanted Golly to play with — that was all; but 
when she begins one of her Songs without Words — 
'you shan’t marry my precious son’ — ‘he ought 
to do so much better’ — and ‘I think you most 
undesirable’ — and all that — why, naturally, I feel 
that I shall have to get engaged to him, just to 
show her her place. ” 

“To show Lady Muirfield her place,” repeated 
Agnes in a shocked voice, as if someone had 
suggested showing St. Paul his place. “I never 
think of her like that, somehow.” 

“Her son isn’t in love with you, or you soon 
would. Of course I expect my mother-in-law to 
hate me, whoever she is. Women always hate 
the girls who marry their sons, and it’s natural that 
they should. But Lady Muirfield makes such a 
mull of things, and is so stupid and heavy-handed, 
and that’s what I despise. If she did the thing 
cleverly, and dealt with it as if it were a diplo- 
matic problem and not a parochial annoyance, 
why then I should admire her for it. I dare say 
she does want Golly to marry money. I should, 
if I were his mother. ” 

“But you have money, cousin.” 

“Money! What do you mean? About enough 
to pay for postage stamps!” 

“ I thought you had £300 a year of your own? ” 

“So I have, but that is nothing.” 

“It is all we have to live upon,” said Agnes 
simply; “at least all we had before you came. 
But that has made us quite well off, you know. 


88 


Patricia 


We have so much nicer things to eat, and more 
fires, and everything is nicer.” 

Patricia stood still in the road. 

“Oh, Agnes!” she exclaimed, “how awful! 
But it is nice to think you really like having 
me!” 

“ Of course we do. It was our duty you know. ” 

“But that doesn’t necessarily mean you’d like 
it?” 

“ Oh, yes, I think it does. It is because it’s one’s 
duty that one likes to do it. In fact that is why 
we like our lives, ” and Agnes looked a little shyly 
at her cousin. 

“How queer!” said Patricia aloud; but to her- 
self she said, “It has come to something if I am 
a religious duty! In London I was under the 
impression I was a secular treat ; but one lives and 
learns — in the country ! How Fitz will laugh when 
I tell him ! Me — a Christian duty ! It makes me 
feel as if I were a cannibal at once.” Then she 
realized that Agnes was talking. 

“I am greatly interested in all affaires de cceur ,” 
her cousin was saying softly. “Once I had one 
of my own.” 

“ Do tell me about it, that is, if you don’t mind, ” 
replied Patricia graciously, knowing that Agnes 
was bursting to do so. 

“He came as a deputation for the S. P. G. 
It was a wonderful meeting — to me!” 

“And stayed at the rectory, I suppose?” 

“Yes. But I never saw him alone there. 


The Limitations of Lynfield 89 


Father had too much to say to him. No, it was 
at the meeting that it happened.” 

“What happened?” asked Patricia with startled 
curiosity. 

“I have never spoken of it to any one else,” 
continued Agnes faintly, “Maggie says so many 
things are rubbish, and it would kill me if she 
shattered my dear little romance, for it is the only 
one I ever had. ” 

“Yes, dear,” said her cousin with a stab of un- 
wonted affection, “I quite understand.” 

“He spoke beautifully,” and she crooned over 
the recollection as over some dear, dead thing, 
“and once or twice he looked at me. I am sure he 
did, though it is more difficult to catch the expres- 
sion through eye-glasses. But I do like eye-glasses, 
don’t you, Patricia? They are so much more dis- 
tingue than ordinary spectacles, I think.” 

“I never thought about it in a man. All eye- 
gear is disfiguring to women.” 

“And when the hymn came, I had no book, 
and — you’ll hardly believe it of a deputation — he 
stepped down off the platform before all the room 
and shared his with me. And oh, Patricia! I 
can hardly tell you! The hymn was ‘Love 
divine, all loves excelling.’ We sang it together 
before them all. I was ready to faint — but oh! 
so happy!” 

“And then?” asked Patricia, thinking that she 
was in the first volume and not dreaming that she 
had finished the third. 


90 


Patricia 


“Why, then the benediction was pronounced,” 
said Agnes simply. “ He went away next morning 
and I have never seen him since. It was five 
years ago, but I always feel sure there was some- 
thing between us to draw him like that — don’t 
you?” and her voice sharpened a little with 
anxiety. 

“I am sure there was something,” said Patricia. 

“And you wouldn’t be mistaken, as Maggie 
might?” a little wistfully. “You have so much 
experience in things of that kind. ” 

“Oh, not much,” and Patricia spoke truth that 
time. 

“But you are so modest about it. I am never 
tired of wondering just what he meant, and whether 
he felt exactly as I did, or a little different? ” 

“Men and women always feel a little different, 
I think.” 

“And you are sure to know. I am so glad I 
have told you, because it makes a link between us, 
doesn’t it?” 

“It does indeed,” said Patricia taking her 
cousin’s arm; “and I expect you’ll meet him 
again.” Patricia was the kind of person who 
always thought that if you cried for the moon, you 
would be sure to get it some day — but Agnes was 
made of sterner stuff. 

“I don’t think so. There has been a deputation 
every year and he has never come again. No, 
I feel that it is over — but I am very, very glad it 
happened.” 


The Limitations of Lynfield 91 


“ So am I, if it makes you happy. ” 

“ There is just something I haven’t told,” and 
Agnes flushed over her forehead in that unbecom- 
ing way which blushes take on certain faces. “I 
thought you might be shocked at my speaking of 
it.” 

“ I don’t think you could shock me. ” 

“I couldn’t bear to be indelicate in any way, or 
to seem coarse, or to let anything rub the bloom 
off my precious romance — but, if you’ll take what 
I say in the right spirit, and understand how 
sacred it seems to me, and ” 

11 It was sporting of Agnes to have let him kiss 
her at such meeting,” thought Patricia to herself. 
“I wonder how they managed it?” 

“When we were singing, the hymn-book leaf 
had to be turned and — oh Patricia! our hands just 
touched!” 

“Good heavens!” 

“You aren’t shocked, are you? You don’t 
think it horrid of me to have said it?” and Agnes 
almost burst into tears. 

“Of course I’m not, nor don’t! I am awfully 
glad you told me, dear. It makes me realize it 
all so much better.” 

“And you think it was a spark of the real thing, 
don’t you?” 

“A smouldering flame,” murmured Patricia 
mendaciously. 

“I have often thought that perhaps he had a 
mother dependent on him, or else his chest was 


92 


Patricia 


delicate — he was rather narrow in the chest and 
pale — and I don’t think it is right for people with 
too delicate chests to marry, do you, Patricia?” 

“Most certainly not. But I think it is more 
likely to have been his mother, because many 
more men have mothers than delicate chests, you 
know. And when she dies, then perhaps you’ll 
meet him again and there’ll be no obstacle.” 

Agnes shook her head. 

“It is too exciting to think that. It unfits me 
for daily life. Y ou are most kind and sympathetic, 
cousin, but you must not excite me with false 
hopes. I am happier just thinking about it as 
over.” 

“Then I should, dear.” 

“I often feel that it is because Maggie has had no 
such experience to make her soft and tender, that 
she has grown a little hard. It is her misfortune 
rather than her fault. ” 

“Very likely.” 

“But there is no excuse for you and me,” and 
Agnes gave a happy little laugh; “though we 
never could be hard now we have once known the 
real thing. It just makes all the difference. ” 

“It does.” 

And then they joined the sewing-party. 

At Lynfield the sewing-meetings were held in 
turn at different houses, and this time it was under 
the roof of a little old lady named Varley, who, 
together with a faded niece, had seen better days. 
Once in the long ago when Miss Varley was young 


The Limitations of Lynfield 93 


she had been governess in a ducal family, and the 
effulgence of that glory had never died away from 
her self-consciousness. Then, after the noble 
children had outgrown her instruction, she had, on 
the foundations of them, so to speak, built up a 
prosperous middle-class school at Tooting, of 
which “the dear duchess” was patron saint. 
But in these days of progress and growth, the 
middle class of Tooting in its turn outgrew the 
educational goods Miss Varley had to offer, and 
she was obliged to break up her genteel establish- 
ment and, with the wreckage of such furniture as 
survived the sale, she retired, on a most modest 
pittance, to the inexpensive village of Lynfield, 
of which she had heard from the duchess, who 
was an aunt of Lady Farringford, a distant 
neighbour of the Muirfields. So the time of her 
old age was blessed indeed, and she settled down 
with the peaceful satisfaction of knowing that 
“the dear duchess” had been actuated by the Will 
of God, and co-operated with Him, in a wise choice 
on her behalf. 

The house was prettily situated with a sunny 
view over the river to the distant hills ; the 
drawing-room, which was no unlived-in mockery, 
gleamed with a few faded glories of better days, 
and was resplendent with old-fashioned portraits 
of the ducal family in most attitudes of the 
Victorian era. There were fancy tables, on one 
of which lay the Bible and Debrett, worn 
with daily usage, and occasional chairs, and a 


94 


Patricia 


draped piano, — with keys like old teeth, and a 
jardiniere full of plants, which all showed how 
different Miss Varley’s drawing-room was to the 
common parlours of the other villagers. For 
Miss Varley had a noblesse oblige other even 
than that bestowed upon her by the duchess. 
She herself, on one side of her lineage, was second 
cousin to a baronet, and to him it was often 
necessary to refer, among other things, to prove 
the wisdom of the “dear duchess’s” choice of her 
as governess for her children, seeing that in that 
capacity a perfect gentlewoman was an absolute 
necessity. 

In appearance Miss Varley exactly resem- 
bled a black beetle, and she moved with the 
same noiseless steps and gait. Her mantles, 
edged with bugles, her black lace cap, and her 
funereal gloves, all suggested a black beetle’s ward- 
robe. Her tongue was sharp, her temper uncer- 
tain, or rather certain to be upset on the slenderest 
provocation, and she regarded her world from the 
standpoint of a schoolroom dais, where coercion 
by means of a cane is the appointed manner of 
ruling. Elegant though the drawing-room was at 
Sunnyside, it was less suitable for the sewing-party 
than, for instance, Mrs. Weston’s large parlour; 
but Miss Varley’s right to be among the local 
entertainers could not have borne disputing, for, 
in her case, touchiness had reached the dimensions 
of a fine art. And fortunately there were folding 
doors into a dark breakfast-room behind, which 


The Limitations of Lynfield 


95 


could be opened on this occasion, and so seats were 
provided for quite a fair attendance. The stuffy 
atmosphere, hot from a western sun and smelling 
of treacle, — which Patricia soon discovered was not 
treacle at all but unbleached calico, — hit the girls 
in the face as they came in from the cold clean air 
of a spring east wind, which was outstaying its 
welcome, drying up the source of growing showers, 
and letting the March dust accumulate at April 
interest. The usual buzz of conversation fell upon 
their ears, until the rector’s wife offered up the 
obscurely-expressed petition that they might be 
‘‘prevented in all their doings,” and then the 
business of the afternoon began. 

“I wonder whether Miss Varley would be so 
kind as to read again today?” suggested Mrs. 
Vaughan, who was secretly wondering how she 
could remedy the fact that her hostess’s niece had 
unfortunately cut out a pile of children’s under- 
garments all for the right leg. 

“I shall be pleased to do so, Mrs. Vaughan. 
The lessons I had in elocution before I could 
undertake the education of her Grace’s children, 
have borne everlasting fruit. It is therefore not 
only that I am willing, but I am also happily 
capable of complying with your request.” 

The selection of literature for the sewing-meet- 
ings was somewhat varied ow'ng to the fact that 
each of the leading ladies supplied a book in 
turn. 

Mrs. Vaughan’s contribution had been a history 


9 6 


Patricia 


of the Prayer Book, which was erudite but stodgy. 
No one rejoiced more than she did when it was 
finished. She had to be loyal to it because it was 
her husband’s choice, but her attention had often 
wandered during its arid pages, and she could not 
remember one single fact which she had learnt 
from its perusal. Then there had been a most 
moving story provided by Mrs. Weston, so moving 
that it rendered reading aloud almost impossible. 
While it lasted a plan was made that each lady 
read until her emotion overmastered her, and 
then she tearfully passed it on to her neighbour to 
continue for as long as her feelings in turn allowed. 
But the present volume had been suggested by 
Miss Varley herself, and therefore it was utterly 
impossible for Mrs. Vaughan to express any 
criticism thereof. It was an old-fashioned story 
of foreign intrigue in high places, with a strong 
historical flavour and an absolutely unconvincing 
plot. Unfortunately from time to time the word 
“Zounds” caught the reader unawares. She was 
on the lookout for French expressions such as 
“Mon Dieu” which she immediately transposed 
into such exclamations as “Sakes alive!” but 
the expression “Zounds” rather overpowered her 
— she did not quite know what language it was — 
until Mrs. Vaughan suggested that “Dearie me!” 
would be a good substitute. That this might 
sound incongruous from the lips of a French liber- 
tine did not seem to occur to any one. The 
continual French expressions were a fine field for 


The Limitations of Lynfield 97 


the display of Miss Varley’s irreproachable accent, 
and indeed this was the main motive in her de- 
ciding on this particular book. 

‘‘Where did we leave off last time?” enquired 
Mrs. Merryweather, the wife of the leading non- 
conformist radical in Lynfield; who yet was toler- 
ant enough to mix in with church folk on week 
days, and not to quote her husband’s opinions 
unless directly incited to do so. But the worst 
of Mrs. Merryweather was that she was so aggres- 
sively intelligent. She always would understand 
things as she went along; and the questions she 
had asked on the history of the Prayer Book had 
been too much for them all. “I will consult the 
rector,” was Mrs. Vaughan’s plaintive cry when 
confronted by these problems. 

Miss Varley turned back several pages: 

“The ‘grand seigneur’ was lying in ambush 
under the sofa of the marquise. It was ‘bed,’” 
she interpolated in a low voice to Mrs. Weston, 
“but I thought it not advisable to read that out 
before so many young girls — besides he had no 
business to have been in the bedroom at all! 
Yes, I was just saying he was lurking under the 
marquise’s sofa, his brother having informed her 
on his parole d'honneur that he was at that mo- 
ment in Paris.” Miss Varley pronounced the 
French capital as if it ended in double E. 

“I never trust the French, ” remarked the lodge- 
keeper’s wife from the Park, priding herself on her 
interpretation of character — “they are a deceitful, 


? 


9 8 


Patricia 


lying race I have always heard, and this bears me 
out.” 

“ Still, there are many good among them,” 
pleaded the rector's wife. 

‘‘But they are Roman Catholics,” said Mrs. 
Merryweather sharply, and Aunt Lucy felt 
snubbed. 

“Was the marquise asleep?” asked Maggie 
Vaughan. 

“It does not say,” and Miss Varley knit her 
brows in research, “but I should think it likely.” 

“An after-dinner nap, I expect,” suggested the 
lady from the Lodge. 

“Why it is the same through all history. The 
habits of the aristocracy are self-indulgent and 
luxurious,” interpolated Mrs. Merryweather. 

“The French aristocracy,” assented Mrs. 
Vaughan, looking up from her problem. “I 
think it will be best if we confine our criticism to 
the French aristocracy, which we all know was 
most severely punished in the French Revolution.” 

“And rightly so, Mrs. Vaughan, in my opinion. 
No great wrongs are righted unless by revolutions. 
Not that I want no revolutions,” she continued 
kindly, “in spite of what Mr. Merryweather says, 
a life of peace and plenty is all I ask — eh, Mrs. 
Weston?” 

“‘The heart of the grand seigneur was full of 
evil thoughts,'” Miss Varley began to read, and 
then Mrs. Weston whispered — “Don’t you think 
it would be better to skip the evil thoughts, Miss 


The Limitations of Lynfield 99 

Varley? You never know in these days how they 
will end.” 

Miss Varley nodded and hurriedly ran on in 
front for a few pages. 

“It is only murder, Mrs. Weston,” she an- 
nounced cheerfully and with great relief, “it will 
be all right.” 

And then they all settled down to the enjoy- 
ment of a startling tragedy of the absolutely mid- 
Victorian, sanguinary type. 

On the way home from the sewing-meeting Mrs. 
Vaughan went into her district. It was a good 
time for visiting, she said, because the cottage 
teas were over and the cottage bedtime, even for 
the babies, had not arrived. Patricia thought it 
was not a good time for her aunt, who had never 
had a minute to herself the whole day, and who was 
due at the choir practice at half-past seven. Even 
tea at Miss Var ley’s had been no respite for the 
rector’s wife, who was busy looking after everyone 
but herself, and also was called upon to arbitrate 
in several little local disputes, in which it was 
absolutely necessary for her to take both sides 
at once — a somewhat complicated achievement; 
but one learns how to do such things in country 
parishes. It was therefore past nine o’clock before 
Mrs. Vaughan returned home. 

“Aren’t you very tired, aunt?” asked her niece, 
with a new note of tenderness in her voice. 

“ I am, my love, but I am so thankful I went into 
the district. You see old Mrs. Warren so feels 


100 


Patricia 


leaving her cottage up on the hills and going into 
the Chadwicks’ yard where there is no outlook; 
so we must do what we can to paste up some cheer- 
ful pictures inside and make it a bit more like 
home to the old lady. I had a nice long talk with 
her, and left her very much brighter and more 
resigned. Then, there was Mrs. Turner’s baby 
I was able to see to. That child has never taken 
its food as it should, and I advised her to give it 
the inside of rasins, and said I would write to 
Muirfield stores for some larger ones. The raisins 
here do not have any insides somehow. But it’s a 
wonderful thing for children with weak digestions, 
— only I felt a little afraid afterwards whether it 
might not be suitable for that particular child, so 
I ran up to the doctor’s and had a chat with him, 
being his surgery hours. And I am thankful to 
say he thought I had done right, — perfectly right. 
I must send for those raisins this very night before 
I go to bed or they might get forgotten tomorrow. ” 
Here Mrs. Vaughan paused for breath, and then 
hurried out into the hall to meet her husband, who 
had been preaching at a distant church which 
involved a five miles’ walk. Mrs. Vaughan always 
made a point of going out into the hall to welcome 
the rector, and to help him off with his overcoat, 
and usher him in with a flourish of trumpets to 
the domestic circle round his fireside. On any 
occasion when necessity hindered this habit, 
Uncle George would stand stock-still crying, 
1 ‘Where’s your mother?” in his drowning voice, 


The Limitations of Lynfield ioi 

until his clothes almost dried on him; and still 
holding his bag and wearing his hat, neither of 
which he seemed able to dispose of without his 
wife’s help. However these occasions were so 
rare as not to be worth legislating for. 

Having taken off his outer garments, much as 
you would a child’s of eighteen months, Aunt 
Lucy dashed into the kitchen to superintend 
personally the making of the rector’s cocoa and 
the poaching of his eggs, and then she was induced 
to sit down herself and amuse him during the re- 
mainder of the meal. 

“I wish you had been at the practice tonight,” 
she began, and then she hurriedly contradicted 
herself, “but I am very glad you were not, for we 
had a little trouble about the solo, and I think when 
there’s a bit of trouble a man is apt to make it 
worse, somehow.” 

“It’s that young Turner, I suppose. A con- 
ceited young man with no idea of bowing to 
authority. ” 

“I don’t know how it is, ” mused his wife, “but 
choirs seem subject to epidemics, as it were, of 
rebellion and discontent. They seem to come 
round just like measles in the schools, and there’s no 
stamping them out till they have run their course. ” 

“Why don’t you dismiss the tiresome ones?” 
suggested Patricia, who was beginning to grasp 
the hang of parochial politics. 

“They’d turn chapel if you did,” said Uncle 
George. 


102 


Patricia 


“Or they might turn nothing, ” added his wife. 

“ Neither are desirable from my point of view, ” 
continued the rector. “That young Turner is a 
handful. ” 

“He has the best tenor — indeed the only real 
tenor in the choir. ” And Mrs. Vaughan sighed. 

“ He’s half a dissenter as it is. ” 

“You see Mr. Merryweather is his uncle. ” 

“And if he leaves the choir, then all the Turner 
cousins will leave the church, and the aunt, too. 
They haven’t been now for three Sundays because 
I asked Will Warren to collect at the Bible Society 
meeting instead of Albert Turner.” 

“Is their staying away from church supposed to 
be a punishment for you?” asked Patricia smiling. 

“Yes indeed, my love,” exclaimed her aunt, 
“it is a terrible grief to your uncle and me when 
any of the flock backslide. ” 

“When I was little and offended,” continued 
Patricia, “I always insisted on eating my apple 
tart without any sugar. It was supposed to 
punish my nurse.” 

“If you had had a mother, my love, it would 
have been a real distress to her that you should 
eat anything sour, and that is how we feel towards 
the parish.” 

“Well, I shouldn’t, if I were you. I shouldn’t 
care in the least however much they chose to 
punish themselves — or — in the church instance — 
to try to punish the Almighty. It only strikes 
me as funny.” 


The Limitations of Lynfield 103 

“It won’t always,” said Aunt Lucy with con- 
viction. 

“ Merry weather is a man of influence,” con- 
tinued the rector grudgingly. “He is very intelli- 
gent and self-opinionated and ready to oppose 
everything and everybody.” 

“He actually stood for the county council,” 
almost whispered Aunt Lucy, who would have 
whispered any delinquency with equal compunc- 
tion. 

“Is he what you call ‘chapel’?” asked Patricia. 

“He is a dissenter from chapel,” explained 
Maggie. 

“That sounds as if he were not only halved but 
quartered. Then what place of worship does he 
finally attend?” asked Patricia again. 

“ Merry weather’s Chapel, it is called. He did 
belong to the Congregationalists — but then some- 
thing upset him at their chapel, and so he started 
a chapel of his own.” 

“Like Edward Irving, and Mary Eddy. How 
very sporting of him?” 

“Oh, my love! don’t speak thus of schism,” 
pleaded her aunt. “I wish Mr. Merry weather 
could be refolded in the arms of the Church, and 
that he wasn’t an anti- vaccinationist. There is 
not a properly vaccinated baby whose parents 
attend Merry weather’s Chapel.” 

“He is a good temperance worker,” said Uncle 
George judiciously. 

“But most inflammatory at election times,” 


104 


Patricia 


put in Maggie. ''Personally I’ve no patience 
with dissenters or radicals.” 

"We won’t discuss it just now, Maggie dear,” 
said her mother. "I never like any controversial 
subject during meals. It hinders digestion and is 
apt to upset the stomachs as well as the tempers 
present.” 

"Come into my room, aunt,” said Patricia 
persuasively when Uncle George had been, so to 
speak, tucked up at his desk for a final fling at 
Sunday evening’s sermon — "I wish you had a 
fire in yours, too. ” 

"Oh, no, my love. I’ve never had a fire in my 
bedroom in my life except when Agnes was bom, 
which happened to be in the winter and she was 
not a very strong baby.” 

"I feel so horribly greedy having one if you 
don’t,” and they walked arm in arm upstairs 
together. 

"But indeed you mustn’t. You have more than 
a right to every comfort we can give you, paying 
us so handsomely as you do. ” 

"Oh, nonsense, aunt! It seems to me that I 
am dreadfully extravagant, when you are all so 
economical. ” 

"Of course, my love, we should have gladly 
welcomed you without a penny — for with whom 
better than a dead brother’s child would we have 
shared our last crust? But still, and I am not 
wishing to deny the fact, your most handsome 
contribution is the greatest possible help to us. 


The Limitations of Lynfield 105 

For you see, Patricia, ” and here Aunt Lucy’s eyes 
filled with tears, “I try not to let sordid worldly 
thoughts come in, nor to take over-anxious thoughts 
for the morrow, but — I can’t help thinking of it in 
weak moments, my love — if anything happened 
to your uncle we should not only be homeless 
but penniless,” and the good lady quite broke 
down; “the girls are young enough to work,” she 
sobbed, “but my working days are fast running 
out.” 

Patricia felt a pricking sensation in her eyes 
and a full one in her throat. She sat silent on the 
hearth-rug, for anything that she could say seemed 
out of place. 

Then Aunt Lucy dashed her coarse handkerchief 
across her brimming eyes: 

“God forgive me,” she cried, “for my wicked 
distrust of His goodness. 1 1 have never seen the 
righteous forsaken nor His seed begging their 
bread.’ Oh! the comfort of the Psalms! I can’t 
think what has upset me so tonight, dear Patricia. 
I am so ashamed of myself. ” 

“The wonder to me is,” said her niece slowly, 
“that you are ever not upset. ” 

“I must be a bit overtired, and so prone to 
temptation,” continued Mrs. Vaughan, “but you 
must forget what I said, my love, and never think 
of it again. ” 

But Patricia did. 


CHAPTER V 


“the serpent tempted me” 

T HE post had brought Patricia a very interest- 
ing letter. It ran as follows : 

“23, Whitefriars Gate, E. C. 

“Private 

“Dear Miss Vaughan: 

“At your brother’s request I have carefully gone 
through the letters and correspondence of your 
late father, and I find therein ample material for 
a most interesting, valuable and saleable book. 
I am writing to suggest that you should use your 
literary powers, of which I have had many oppor- 
tunities of judging, in editing and linking together 
such a work. No one perhaps knew Edward 
Vaughan as a man better than his daughter did, if 
as well; and none could weave his correspondence 
into so perfect a form as one who has inherited 
some of the charm and brilliance of his pen. If it 
is not too premature a suggestion, I might add that 
our firm would delight in publishing such a book as 
106 


“The Serpent Tempted Me” 107 

I suggest. May I come down and see you on the 
matter? 

“Yours very truly, 

“Martin Crawley.” 

A thread of fire ran through Patricia’s veins. 

“A man wants to come down from town to 
see me,” she said, “may I ask him to lunch on 
Thursday?” 

“Most certainly, my love. But do you think 
he could eat boiled mutton? It is the day for 
boiled mutton. ” 

“Oh, of course he could eat it,” said her niece 
impatiently. 

“Is he a friend of yours, cousin?” asked Agnes, 
with a tender lingering over the accentuation of 
“friend.” 

“He’s not exactly a friend, and he’s certainly 
not a lover, if you mean that. He wants me to 
edit my father’s letters, and I should simply adore 
to.” 

“Does that mean write a real book?” asked 
Agnes rather awe-stricken. 

“Well, it means writing enough to link up the 
whole correspondence, which was most varied.” 

“I don’t think you can do it, ” said Maggie; “it 
seems to me ridiculous to imagine that a girl like 
you could do such a thing. Why, no one would 
read it.” 

“But your dear father’s letters would be most 
illuminating, I am sure,” interposed Aunt Lucy, 


io8 


Patricia 


‘‘and of course they would form the book.” At 
the bottom of her heart Aunt Lucy thought any 
woman as incapable of writing a book as any man 
of making a flannel petticoat — but she would not 
discourage either in the attempt, if they so willed. 

“And there are so many interesting letters 
from distinguished men in all the different worlds. 
My father was the sort of man who drew what was 
interesting out of everybody. I wonder,” con- 
tinued Patricia, “whether the letters you write 
or the letters you receive are the more character- 
istic of yourself. ” 

“Why the letters you write, of course,” decided 
Maggie. “ What a silly question ! ” 

“Not necessarily,” argued her cousin. “The 
letter you write to your laundress, for instance, is 
much more an indication of her character than of 
yours. And there are some people you are com- 
pelled to write to about the view and the weather 
and political events — but that is not because 
you can’t be interesting, but because they aren’t. 
Don’t you see?” 

“No I don’t!” snapped Maggie. 

“I once had a letter which said, ‘What a pall is 
hanging over the Soudan,’ which, I hope, was one 
on your side, Maggie ; but, whichever way is truer, 
my father’s letters will be right. His was the 
most vivid personality I ever knew. When he 
went out of a room you felt as if there’ d been a 
sale of every atom of furniture. He left nothing 
but emptiness.” 


“The Serpent Tempted Me” 109 


“What a great influence such a man must have 
had!” remarked Mrs. Vaughan. 

“No,” replied Patricia thoughtfully. “I don’t 
think he had. It is just what I was saying — he 
left behind him emptiness, not influence.” 

“It seems to me wicked to criticize your par- 
ents,” said Maggie, “especially when they are 
dead.” 

“We always criticized everything and every- 
body at home, ” said Patricia in a clear-cut steely 
voice; “but we only criticized, never slandered, 
any one.” 

“Slander is most unchristian,” said Uncle 
George. 

“It was not on that ground that my father 
objected to it,” replied his niece. “He thought 
it ugly and ill-bred. But criticism that was 
clever, and deep-seeing, and bracing, and true, was 
his delight, and so ours.” 

“It is in direct opposition to the Fifth Com- 
mandment to think of your father as an ordinary 
man. You just have to honour him,” persisted 
Maggie. 

“I should never have dreamed of considering 
my father an ordinary man, for the simple rea- 
son that it would have been utterly untrue, as he 
was not one; and I required no commandment 
to ensure my honouring him. I always honour 
genius; everybody does.” 

Maggie angrily spread a piece of toast — so 
angrily that you almost felt pity for the toast. 


no 


Patricia 


“Uncle Edward must have been most peculiar, ” 
she said with a snappish bite. 

“He was,” replied Patricia, “absolutely 
unique.” 

“I wonder what she is like?” thought Mar- 
tin Crawley, as he lounged back in the luxury 
of the Midland rolling stock. “I know she’s 
deuced clever but I hope to goodness she is not 
well-principled. A parson’s house is a bad setting, 
— but,” and he smiled to himself, “we have a 
fortune made if only she’ll publish the Welling- 
borough correspondence. She’ll need a bit of 
playing, though, I expect; but the great thing 
is not to let her realize the situation. I hope she’s 
hard up. That always pulls with a woman.” 

Patricia was delighted to meet the young pub- 
lisher. She greeted him with the enthusiasm 
with which one hails a home neighbour in a foreign 
country. He talked her language, he knew her 
world; and as she sat in her sitting-room talking 
to him, the rectory and the village all seemed to 
fade into scenery and become part of a picture she 
had been looking at, but in which she — Patricia 
Vaughan — had no part. The past leapt once more 
into realization. She felt the very atmosphere of 
those evenings when a picked company of the most 
brilliant men sat round her father’s table ; she saw 
again the flash of their conversational sabres, and 
felt the intense and vivid interest in thought and 
art and literary life. Oh! it was perfectly delight- 


“The Serpent Tempted Me” m 


ful to finger the letters as they lay in the tin dis- 
patch boxes Mr. Crawley had brought with him; 
and Patricia’s powers were all aflame, as she knew 
that the publisher was asking a task of her which 
she could effectively perform. 

“I shall love doing it,” she said simply. 

“ 1 knew you would. I knew you were the right 
person. You’ll know just how to handle it with 
the same delicate and subtle touch your father had, 
and you will make him live again for the public. ” 

“And the public shall love him,” exclaimed 
Patricia enthusiastically. “I’ll tell them all his 
faults and failings, and all the dear little human 
bits that made him a man, and they shall laugh 
with the same tenderness with which men laugh 
at their mothers’ old-fashioned theories, and love 
him all the more because they laugh.” 

“ That will be grand. You have caught the idea 
quicker than I could throw it.” 

“Plaster saints may be dull, but pen-and-ink 
ones are worse. And you find little else in mem- 
oirs. A picture with no shadows would be like 
those glaring posters of men’s virtues which are 
being published every day.” 

“And to be too historical is a mistake, too; — not 
perhaps from the book’s point of view, but from 
the personality’s.” 

“The public aren’t content with pictures now 
unless they are moving,” continued Patricia. 
“And of course great artists, such as many of our 
biographers are, want to carve a statue that shall 


112 


Patricia 


stand in literature for all time. And you couldn’t 
sculp a man with his hat blowing away, or with 
some ridiculous homely touch that makes him 
real.” 

“ A statue of Edward Vaughan would be utterly 
inadequate,” said the publisher. 

“His personality was dependent on colour, not 
on form,” agreed Patricia. 

“So we do not want a sculptor, we want an 
artist in colour — such as you.” 

“It is nice of you to think I am an artist”; and 
Patricia’s liquid eyes glowed with pleasure; but 
it was the pleasure that springs from latent power 
quite as much as from personal appreciation. 

“Most portraits are weighted with the yards of 
frock coat and trousers which are essential to 
great statesmen, and scientists, and discoverers; 
and the artist has only really the face and hands, ” 
said Martin Crawley. 

“That is a big ‘only,’ my dear sir. Quite big 
enough for the true artist.” 

“But I don’t think you need be hampered by 
any conventional garb such as that. Edward 
Vaughan belonged to no particular age. He 
would have been exactly the same if he had lived 
three hundred years ago or three hundred years 
hence.” 

“Men of genius are like diamonds, but men of 
talent are like gold. And it is the gold that can 
carry a date, and be engraved.” 

“While a diamond has many facets. But my 


“The Serpent Tempted Me” 113 


dear lady, I am wasting your time talking about 
things which you already understand far better 
than I could ever tell you.” 

“A delightful waste,” said Patricia graciously. 

“You will write a perfect book, I feel sure, and 
paint in it a living portrait. And—,” then he 
looked furtively at Patricia, who was watching the 
rings of her cigarette smoke, “you, being a woman, 
will not make the mistake that so many men make 
of sacrificing the living touch to a dead discre- 
tion?” 

“I hate discretion!” said Patricia carelessly. 
“I remember once when a great man was telling 
my father that he was about to write the life of a 
still greater, my father said — ‘ You’ll spoil it by 
your damned discretion!’” 

Martin Crawley laughed aloud. 

“You won’t spoil his that way,” he asserted 
gleefully. 

“Rather not,” assented Patricia. “I shan’t 
spoil it by anything.” 

“I knew you wouldn’t. And your father would 
hate it if you did. ” 

“I remember his reading in that same book, 
after it was published, of the great man’s rhetoric 
even in his domestic circle. How, for instance, at 
the dinner-table he would take up a subject and 
emblazon it with an eloquence for which England 
was hungry — and then my father said, 1 But he has 
left out the exquisite bit that once during a glow- 
ing flow of peroration, in an unexpected dramatic 


8 


Patricia 


1 14 

pause one of his sons was heard asking his brother 
where his last pair of trousers had been made.’ 
And my father added, ‘That would have trebled 
the value of that chapter in the human heart of 
the world. ’ ” 

“The biographer would not have deigned to 
have done it.” 

“It would have been like putting a dash of 
purple in the middle of a face, which in the finest 
portrait was just the shadow which half hid a 
smile.” 

“This smaller box,” said Martin Crawley, fid- 
geting for his keys, “contains what we call the 
Wellingborough correspondence. It is your best 
bit of material.” 

“Why?” asked Patricia. “I don’t remember 
ever hearing my father speak of it — though I 
know he was a great friend of old Lord Welling- 
borough! He stayed with him at nearly all the 
foreign Courts where he was Ambassador, though 
he never talked much about him to me. I re- 
member seeing him, too, once at Princes Gate. 
An awfully handsome, stately man with rather a 
wicked old face, and exquisite manners. Did he 
write good letters?” 

“His letters are simply priceless from a public 
point of view. ” 

“Why?” asked Patricia again with interest. 

“Well, you see, he knew everyone, and had 
many — friends among the ladies of the different 
Courts, and he learned from them a lot of inter- 


“The Serpent Tempted Me” 115 


esting things that an ordinary ambassador might 
never have heard of. ’ ’ He did not add ‘ ‘ and would 
never have repeated.” 

“And then he regaled my father with accounts 
of all this, I suppose?” 

“He did, — and apparently only him. That is 
why this correspondence is so valuable. ” 

“What luck!” exclaimed Patricia. “But I 
wonder why it was not included in Lord Welling- 
borough’s own Life, which came out a year or two 
ago. I am sure they must have applied to my 
father for letters, and he would never have sup- 
pressed them. ” 

Martin shrugged his shoulders. 

“The most remarkable thing about the late 
Lord Wellingborough — and that is saying a good 
deal — is that his only son is a parson. ” 

“How queer!” 

“It was, and is, colossally queer, seeing the sort 
of home life that young man must have had! 
But I suppose it is often the way that the pendu- 
lum swings to the opposite extreme in father and 
son. Your father’s friend was called ‘the wicked 
Lord Wellingborough’ by many of his contempo- 
raries. ” 

“And did the son write his Life?” 

“Yes, and a fine mull he made of it. You 
haven’t read it?” he asked quickly. 

“No. I’m not particularly interested in old 
diplomats — and I hate books about foreign places. 
If I see the word ‘signor’ in a novel it puts me 


n6 


Patricia 


off. And his Life would be more or less full of 
‘signors.’” 

“Or rather ‘signoras,’ I should say.” 

Patricia laughed lightly. “Then there wasn’t 
a Lady Wellingborough?” 

“Oh, yes, there was. She outlived him by a 
couple of years. Her name ought to have been 
Charity, for she seems to have adequately ful- 
filled the somewhat exorbitant demands which 
charity is stated script urally to fulfil. ” 

“Was the book interesting?” asked Patricia — 
“there seems to have been some spicy material 
to hand.” 

“What can you expect of a parson in litera- 
ture?” replied Crawley contemptuously. “He 
did nothing but whitewash. In my opinion dirt 
is often more picturesque. ” 

“I wonder why he attempted to write his 
father’s Life if he could not do it better?” 

As Martin thought it was quite on the cards 
that Patricia might now want to read that Life, 
he said grudgingly: 

“ He did it well enough — only he was such a fool 
in the way he did it. Of course old Welling- 
borough had had a brilliant career and held most 
important posts, and if his son had not written 
his Life someone else would. But he just made 
him out to be a distinguished, high-class diplomat, 
showing his brilliance and charm and all that sort 
of thing — but, as you were saying just now, Miss 
Vaughan, he made the lamentable mistake of 


“The Serpent Tempted Me” 117 


suppressing one side of him altogether — the side 
that didn’t appeal to the English parson, but which 
would have most interested the English public.” 

“Was the book much read?” 

“I think not. It was not the sort of book to 
be popular; the material wasn’t handled rightly. 
You won’t make that mistake,” continued the 
tempter. “Your book will be popular, for you 
will handle your material in a masterly way, I 
feel sure.” 

“Still I wonder none of the letters to my father 
were published.” 

“They were not conventional enough for his 
present lordship’s cut-and-dried taste. Edward 
Vaughan appreciated and kept them.” 

“I shall enjoy reading them,” said Patricia. 

“Doubtless, my dear young lady, but we must 
come to business. I am authorized to offer you 
from our firm £1000 in advance royalties on just 
an ordinary surface kind of Life such as every- 
body writes, but — ” and here he watched Patricia 
narrowly — “if you intend to give us the kind of 
book which you have been discussing — a Life of 
vivid realization and living portraiture, untram- 
melled by masculine clumsiness and — discretion; 
not hampered by any rotten reserves, but giving 
of your subject freely and holding nothing back — 
such for instance as this Wellingborough correspon- 
dence — why, then we offer you £5000 in royalties 
in advance.” 

Patricia gasped. 


n8 


Patricia 


“How perfectly lovely!” she exclaimed girlishly, 
“why that will be £200 a year!” 

“And the sale will not stop at that, Miss 
Vaughan, you take my word. We should not 
offer you so much if we thought it would,” and 
he smiled slightly. “And we only make one 
stipulation.” 

“What is that?” asked Patricia with her lips, 
but her mind was racing over the possibilities 
which another £200 a year might provide, — and 
not only for herself — the thought of Aunt Lucy and 
her needs came in. 

“Purely a nominal one. That there should be 
absolute secrecy on your part with regard to the 
contents of your material,” and his hand rested 
upon the small dispatch box, “and that you should 
consult none but ourselves concerning your MS. 
before publication.” 

“Why ever not? I might want to ask advice 
about something?” 

“Then, your freshness and originality would be 
tarnished. No, Miss Vaughan, we think too well 
of you to allow that any such possibility could be 
desirable. We want you, and you alone, with the 
material you have to hand. You will agree, I 
am sure?” 

“Most certainly,” assented Patricia carelessly. 

“Should that compact be broken,” continued 
Crawley, “our obligation with regard to advance 
royalties would also be annulled.” 

“All right. I quite understand.” 


“The Serpent Tempted Me” 119 


“This stipulation will be included in the agree- 
ment which we shall send you to sign. And now 
I am sure that I can congratulate you on your 
future success. ” 

“Are you sure that there is no one’s permission 
to be asked about the Wellingborough letters?’’ 
asked Patricia, as the bell rang for midday dinner. 

“Of course not,’’ said Crawley brazenly, “see- 
ing that both the writer and receiver are dead.’’ 

“But how about that tiresome son? Might not 
he object?” 

“My dear young lady,” and the publisher 
groaned in spirit, “if you intend submitting your 
literary efforts to the discrimination of a parson, 
I wash my hands of you. There is much in 
Edward Vaughan’s correspondence which is not 
in exact harmony with the Thirty-nine Articles — 
so if the reverend blue pencil is to be allowed free 
play, or any play at all, good-bye to all prospects 
of success. Need I warn you?” 

Patricia laughed. 

“I should be sorry if he were vexed,” she said, 
“but there is one comfort — being a parson he’ll 
never read it; — they never do want to read any- 
thing modern and unorthodox — so it won’t matter 
either way. And even if he did want to, he won’t 
have the time — parsons never have — so we are 
doubly sure!” 

Martin Crawley’s visit brought a vital interest 
into Patricia’s life. It fired the flame which is 
not a consuming, but a creating fire. The idea of 


120 


Patricia 


giving her father back to his public, not as a dis- 
tant writer but as a dear, familiar friend, took such 
a hold of her that she lived and worked in it at 
tense pitch throughout the long hot days of June 
and July, until her health began to suffer and her 
nerves were fretted thin. The incident of the 
Wellingborough correspondence had been for- 
gotten in the fever for initiative, and the small 
despatch box lay dusty under a pile of those which 
dealt with earlier times. It is true that no re- 
serve slackened the pace of her pen. Her power in 
writing had always been, as her father had told 
her, in vivid realistic colouring, and the contrast 
between that and the delicate and reserved style 
of his own letters gave her an opportunity of 
effectiveness which she could not fail but use. 
The book began to grow from the faded garden 
where Edward Vaughan and his girl wife had 
played at life together, and the old-world scent of 
lavender and lemon plant seemed to hang over 
the love-letters which he had written to her so 
many years ago. 

“I can't see,” said Maggie as they sat together 
out on the lawn with the miller and his wife, who 
had been supping at the rectory, trying to catch 
the cool breath of night after a parching day, 
“what it is that makes you so done up when you 
have been writing? It isn’t as if you had to make 
it up as you go along. It’s all ready-made for you. 
And there doesn’t seem to me much writing in a 
book like that. ” 


“The Serpent Tempted Me” 121 


“You have to see it all first, and then under- 
stand it, and then you have to feel it,” explained 
Patricia slowly, “and it is feeling that takes it 
out of you. But if you don’t feel it yourself 
there will be nothing alive in it. ” 

“But you haven’t to invent any plot, ” persisted 
her cousin. 

“I have to create the atmosphere in which it 
all has to live — and eternally live, if it is to be a 
book worthy of being a book at all. ” 

“I don’t understand what you are talking 
about.” 

Patricia was too deeply interested in her work 
even to be irritated with Maggie. 

“ Don’t you understand that, if you keep people’s 
letters, and then read them years afterwards, you 
find they are somehow dead and not a bit the 
same?” 

“Oh, yes, my love,” chimed in her aunt, whose 
busy fingers were knitting socks for the poor even 
in the deepening twilight. “I kept my dear 
mother’s letters and thought that while I could 
read them she would never quite be gone. But 
when I look at them again now — oh! they are 
sadder than the little shoes my eldest baby died 
too soon to wear out. They seem deader for 
being in her dear handwriting somehow — I can’t 
quite explain. ” 

“That is because the atmosphere is lost in 
which they alone could live. If you want 
to edit any one’s letters you must re-create 


122 


Patricia 


the atmosphere in which they were originally 
written. ” 

“St. Paul’s letters required no atmosphere,” 
said Uncle George, “to keep them alive.” 

“I suppose,” said Patricia thoughtfully, “that 
what people call inspiration is an eternal atmo- 
sphere. ” 

“Pack of nonsense,” remarked her uncle se- 
verely — “inspiration is God’s dictation word by 
word. And what critics, as they call themselves 
in these days, mean by presuming that when the 
Almighty said seven days He meant a million years, 
as if He didn’t understand the English language, 
I cannot put up with. ” 

“ Right you are, Rector,” exclaimed Mr. Weston ; 
“why, they’ll be telling us there were no such 
people as Adam and Eve next. ” 

“I thought they already had,” said Patricia 
with a little laugh. 

“Then let ’em tell me there was never no such 
person as my good old mother, and I’ll answer a 
fool accordin’ to his folly, eh, Rector? If they 
can do away with your first parents, why not your 
last, too, I’d like to know.” And the miller 
rubbed his hands with satisfaction at the pre- 
dicament in which he had placed the higher 
critics. 

“I believe,” began Uncle George solemnly, as 
if it were the Creed he was about to recite, — and it 
was his creed, though not necessarily the Apostles’, 
— “that the creation of the world was begun 


“The Serpent Tempted Me” ,123 

on Monday morning and finished on Saturday 
night. ” 

“What a busy week!” interpolated Patricia. 

“And that God rested on the seventh day and 
made it holy. We are told this in Scripture, and 
I take the Word literally. ” 

“So do I, ” said Aunt Lucy looking up from her 
work with a beaming face, “and I am sure it was 
written thus for busy folks who are not clever like 
myself, but who cannot walk without the Lamp 
of Truth to guide them. But I do not like argu- 
ments about such matters — they upset me.” 

“Still aunt,” persisted her niece, “you must 
have discussion and criticism to prove the truth 
of a thing — just as you were obliged to have 
demonstrations to prove the use for instance of 
anaesthetics or narcotics and any inventions of 
science. ” 

“But I shouldn’t have liked them proved on a 
child of mine,” said her aunt simply. 

“Nor is divine Revelation at all in the same 
category as scientific problems,” continued the 
rector, “it is just truth, and that is enough — or 
ought to be. ” 

“The Bishop said, ‘the Church to teach and the 
Bible to prove,’” remarked Agnes, who some- 
how felt she was strengthening Patricia’s position 
and that of the Episcopacy at the same time. 

“The Bible alone is enough for me,” said Mr. 
Weston, and the rector wrinkled his forehead. 

“This modern craze for proof here and proof 


124 


Patricia 


there is in my opinion a temptation of the Evil 
One’s. We ought to believe what we are told, as 
our fathers did. ” 

“ And our mothers, ” put in the miller. 

“I never found the slightest difficulty in doing 
so,” said Aunt Lucy, “for when a woman holds 
her first baby in her arms she is bound to believe 
in so much that she cannot understand, that she 
never need have any more trouble about it. ” 

“I never could be worried over much thinking,” 
and the miller’s wife spoke for the first time. 
“You haven’t the chance when you keep poultry 
as we do over and above the mill. And especially 
if you breed turkeys. They’re terribly delicate 
birds, almost like rickety children for wanting 
looking after.” 

“Mrs. Weston is wonderful with her turkeys,” 
ejaculated her proud husband. “Lady Muirfield 
says they are the fattest and tenderest she ever 
ate, and she has had a lot of experience being on 
visiting terms with royalty.” 

“When do the Muirfields come home?” asked 
Maggie. 

“The last week of this month, and that is next 
week,” replied Mrs. Weston. “I never feel that 
Lynfield is quite up to the mark when they are 
away from the Park.” 

“And it is not according to my opinions that a 
man should have more than one home, ” added the 
miller; “there is something wrong in it to my 
mind.” 


“The Serpent Tempted Me” 125 

“Like a man having two wives,” suggested 
Patricia. 

“My love, my love!” gently reproved her aunt. 
“ I am sure Mr. Weston has no such thought. ” 

“You are right, Mrs. Vaughan; for what could a 
man want with two wives who has got one already, 
I should like to know? I should be beside myself 
at the mere thought of such a thing,” and the 
miller wiped his brow as if already upset. 

“I wish my father had lived sometime in the 
country,” said Patricia, “I am getting so satu- 
rated with the atmosphere, and yet have no use 
for it.” 

“If you are getting to like the village as much 
as you ought, I am sure I’m very pleased,” said 
Mr. Weston heartily; he always felt himself a host 
at Lynfield, and gave a host’s welcome to all. 

“Still I’m afraid I am degenerate enough to 
like more than one home. I want one in London 
always, and one by the sea for hot weather ” 

“There’s always lodgings by the sea, ” suggested 
the miller, “and as for London, why it would do 
for me in a fortnight. ” 

And that settled the desirability of any one’s 
wishing for any other world than that which 
Lynfield afforded. 

“Come, mother, the dew is falling, and those 
who are up early must go to bed early, eh? ” 

So the company broke up, and Patricia tried to 
sleep, as she tossed on her hot pillow, and felt the 
liquid fire of creative imagination seethe through 


126 


Patricia 


her brain, and steal from her all possibility of 
rest. 

Her work was good, she knew — good because it 
was natural and true, and charming because it was 
simple and humorous and alive. Her artist’s 
touch was not afraid of purple shadows — indeed 
Patricia had never known what it was to be afraid 
of anything; and because she was so fearless, she 
imparted a recklessness to those whom she in- 
fluenced which they temporarily enjoyed to the 
full. She made them feel young, and dashing, and 
wicked, and clever; and the less they were these 
things the more they enjoyed imagining them- 
selves to be so. Even into Agnes’s virgin soul 
Patricia had slipped the suggestion that she was a 
flirt, and though her cousin blushingly repudiated 
such a misapprehension she was secretly delighted 
with it. Agnes was the only one at the rectory over 
whom Patricia had any influence whatever, and 
that influence was for happiness, though it might 
not conventionally be considered for good. Patri- 
cia brought back a bit of her cousin’s lost youth, 
and helped her with her clothes, and showed her 
how to do her hair. Indeed she went so far as to 
present her with two pin curls to soften the auster- 
ity of her forehead, which made Agnes feel almost 
beautiful, and quite wicked — a most bracing 
prescription of tonic for her depressed and nerve- 
less state. 

“Good gracious, Agnes!” screamed her merci- 
less sister, when she was at length induced to come 


“The Serpent Tempted Me” 127 


downstairs adorned with these embellishments, 
“what on earth have you done to your hair?” 

Agnes crimsoned to the roots of her real hair, 
and the wire pins of the offending curls. 

“I was sending for some new ones,” explained 
Patricia calmly ; “ I always wear one in hot weather 
and for motoring. Oh! by the way, last autumn I 
was motoring with Bobbie Doncaster, and my pin 
curl flew out of my hair and into his eye. It nearly 
wrecked the motor.” 

“Weren’t you terribly ashamed? ” asked Maggie. 

1 1 Ashamed ! What ever for ? We laughed most 
awfully — though I never saw my precious curl 
again. But isn’t it an improvement to Agnes? I 
always think foreheads want a lot of attention — at 
least from us poor straight-haired folk.” 

“Your’s isn’t straight!” exclaimed Agnes loy- 
ally, “it is all soft and wavy and beautiful.” 

“I never gave my forehead a thought,” said 
Maggie, “except to wash it.” 

“You treat it as a tombstone,” said Patricia, 
“once up, it has only to be kept clean.” 

Aunt Lucy was always very shy of personal 
remarks, however nice. She never wished to 
make any that were not, for there was a touch of 
beauty to be found in every face by her, who was 
always looking for a reflection of the Divine; and 
those who seek find. But when her niece appealed 
to her for admiration of her dear daughter, the 
mother’s smile broke out : 

“You look just as I always think of you, my 


128 


Patricia 


Agnes, a sweet fair-haired, blue-eyed little daugh- 
ter, just as Maggie is always my dear, reliable, 
helpful, eldest girl.” 

“I do not approve — ” began Uncle George, 
but his wife hurriedly handed him the newspaper, 
and no manly soul can resist that temptation. 
Then she gave a little nod to Patricia, and a warn- 
ing look to Maggie, and the dangerous corner was 
passed; for Uncle George found that someone was 
opening a discussion about the raising of the tithe 
rent charge, and for at least the next three hours 
he thought of nothing else. After that, he had 
become accustomed to the improved change in his 
daughter’s appearance, and therefore took it for 
granted. 

“My dears,’’ said Aunt Lucy, “it is often wise 
in everyday life just to divert a man’s attention for 
a little, for they are so apt to see some things a bit 
too big — especially anything new. It is like a 
fresh tooth that feels enormous till you have for- 
gotten all about it. I would not deceive your 
dear father for the world, but I often just draw 
his attention from what might vex him — and 
others, too. I find it better. ’’ 

“Father always used to see things either too big 
or too little, ” said Patricia. 

“He would, my dear, being a man.” 

“But more often too little, I think. I used to 
tell him about people who didn’t like us very 
much, and he always said it was my fancy. And 
then to press my point I would tell him about some 


“The Serpent Tempted Me” 129 


little sign of it they had shown, and then he said 
he wouldn’t have me insulted and they should 
never darken his doors again!” 

“It might have been your uncle himself!” 

“But they weren’t in the least alike, aunt.” 

“Except that they were men. All men are alike 
underneath — for man nature is always the same.” 

“Woman’s isn’t. It is always different, ” broke 
in her niece, who loved Aunt Lucy’s conversation, 
when it could be drawn away from parochial 
ducts. 

“For instance, my love — all men read the paper 
at breakfast and let their bacon grow cold, and 
those who haven’t been married for long, fuss 
about it, until not only the bacon fat congeals, but 
some of their own happiness. And it is a sad 
pity, when it is nothing but a bit of man’s nature, 
and he wouldn’t be a man without it. ” 

“If I married I should be furious if a man read 
the paper all breakfast instead of talking to me.” 

“You’d better make up your mind to it, my 
love, for he’s sure to. He wouldn’t be a man 
otherwise. ” 

“Not much compliment to his wife!” and 
Patricia tossed her proud little head. 

“You don’t want compliments after you are 
married, my dear. At least,” added Aunt Lucy 
truthfully, “you don’t get them. But you get 
something much better and bigger and more 
beautiful,” and the worn matron’s face glowed 
with a look that made Patricia think of Aunt Lucy 


9 


130 


Patricia 


as a girl again. l ' 1 Your uncle couldn’t pay me a 
compliment now — his tongue would be too stiff. 
But he couldn’t live without me all the same,” 
she added softly. 


CHAPTER VI 


“AND I DID EAT” 

Now that the book was in full swing and her 
father’s figure standing out in it with a distinct- 
ness and intimateness which Patricia herself was 
amazed at, as she read and reread her own work, 
the time had come when she felt she must go care- 
fully through all the later material, to marshal it 
into narrative, and to build up with it the further 
delineation of his mind and character. So with a 
smile of anticipation she opened the little dispatch 
box, wherein lay the Wellingborough correspond- 
ence. The church clock chimed two, and the long- 
est hour of the day, from two to three in the 
afternoon, lay before her. But as she read the 
clock chimed yet and yet again, and Patricia was 
completely unconscious of it. The tea bell rang 
and still she never stirred. It was not the read- 
ing of the letters themselves that took so long; it 
was the realization of the situation in which they 
placed her. For Patricia was no fool. She at 
once appreciated the marketable value of these 
most delicately scandalous productions. She was, 
moreover, no saint — so they did not shock her 


132 


Patricia 


anything like as much as they ought to have done. 
They offered her material, ready made, for some of 
the most entertaining situations, and suggestions, 
and they also told some of the secrets of the diplo- 
matist’s knowledge which were not old enough yet 
to be dull or dying. But, what Patricia was at 
once clever enough to see, — these letters from an 
unprincipled, dishonourable, slanderous old am- 
bassador threw up, with a vividness of charm which 
no other letters to Edward Vaughan succeeded 
in doing, the contrast between the coarse-souled 
profligate and the fastidious, refined cynic, who, 
though offered pitch in such platefuls, yet showed 
no stain of defilement in the answers which he was 
clever enough to write, and the manner in which he 
handled such knowledge as never ought to have 
been brought to his cognizance. Patricia laughed 
at Lord Wellingborough’s letters, not perhaps 
quite realizing how scandalous they were, nor how 
he had come to the knowledge of such intimate 
intrigues; but fully seeing how they would en- 
trance a public ever greedy of garbage, and claim 
the attention, too, of many who were not included 
in Edward Vaughan’s world, but yet were a 
power in public and political circles. The infor- 
mation contained in them by hint and innuendo, 
as well as by some disgracefully direct speaking, — 
especially in one letter which disclosed a most 
secret political intrigue and gave the naked his- 
tory of a startling historic situation, — would not 
only double the number of readers of the book 


“And I Did Eat” 


i33 


outside purely literary interest; but the way of 
receiving — and ignoring — the information in the 
answers was a most vivid reflection of one side of 
the character of her father, which Patricia was 
keenly anxious to show in all its refined translu- 
cence and fastidious reserve. The diplomacy of 
the correspondence was not to be found in the 
writing of the diplomat, but in the replies of his 
friend; and though, on finishing it, Patricia was 
somewhat disgusted with the tarnished ambassa- 
dor and his love of shady places, she was more 
than ever thrilled with admiration for her father’s 
discretion in ignoring many illuminating incidents, 
which he was thus basely privileged to know; and 
his still more subtle delicacy in dealing tactfully 
and tastefully with the discussion of internal 
and intimate political diplomacy. Patricia could 
easily show how her father refrained from making 
any use of quite untraceable suggestions for the 
strengthening of some positions which he enthusi- 
astically advocated by his pen, — and how he 
mellowed much that was sharp and rasping by his 
delightful humour and racy ridicule. The best 
side of Edward Vaughan was emphasized by this 
correspondence. The worst side of Lord Welling- 
borough was made plain. Patricia cared im- 
mensely for the former and nothing for the latter* 
Still she sat and thought. 

4 ‘The son will kill me if he ever knows,” she said 
at length to herself. “And of course I ought not 
to publish any of this without his permission. 


134 


Patricia 


But, here, most cautious Crawley! your barriers 
keep me safe. I have promised, and my promise 
is in black and white. How delightful to feel the 
responsibility is no longer mine.” Patricia was 
like her father in her facility for pushing her re- 
sponsibility on to other shoulders. ‘ ‘ He was dread- 
fully afraid I should shy at it ! ” she continued with 
a laugh, “and I ought to, I know — even now. But 
if I do, my book will be nothing like so interesting, 
nor so remarkable, nor so widely read. Oh ! you 
dear, dear book!” she cried touching with her lips 
the untidy manuscript — “ I won’t cut off your right 
hand, nor pluck out your right eye, even if they 
eventually cast you into hell fire; — you shall first 
enter into life with them both!” And then as 
she picked up the letters again: “Nice people 
will think I didn’t understand, and nasty people 
won’t care, — besides, I don’t care what nasty 
people think. And what does it matter what 
anybody thinks of a horrid old thing like Welling- 
borough? But they’ll think a lot more of Father, 
and that is what matters most of anything. I 
should be a fool to throw away such a chance, and 
there is nothing blatant about the letters to hit any 
one in the face, or to jar on the book. They just 
show how Father could draw out the confidence of 
all his friends. Old Wellingborough must have 
been awfully fond of him to have given himself 
away like that. Now they are both dead, of course 
the confidence doesn’t matter. And in one letter, 
Lord Wellingborough asked him to write an article 


“And I Did Eat” 


135 


on the situation which, he said, would make Europe 
tingle. But Father didn’t. His answer to that is 
really fine. I do want to show all the conven- 
tional, run-in-a-religious-groove kind of people 
that a man like my father, who believed in nothing 
at all, could yet keep his hands as clean as any of 
theirs. And this will just do it.” And then she 
added to herself as she relocked the boxes: “I 
hope to heaven I shall never meet that son! But 
even if I do, he won’t have read it — ten chances to 
one! And even if he has — ! Well, if he has, I 
only hope I shan’t meet him!” And she went 
downstairs. 

The Muirfields’ return to Lynfield heralded the 
exciting piece of news that during the coming win- 
ter they intended to give a ball in commemoration 
of their eldest unmarried daughter’s coming of age. 

The neighbourhood always looked forward to 
the annual garden party at Lynfield Park, but a 
ball in addition indicated such a year of dis- 
sipation as Lynfield had never known before. 
The garden party illuminated the summer, and a 
more depressing entertainment Patricia thought 
she had never experienced. The ball, in its turn, 
would make the winter gay. 

“I am so thankful it has kept fine,” exclaimed 
Aunt Lucy, as they all set out for the Park on the 
day of the garden party. “It would have been 
such a disappointment to so many if it had rained. ” 

“I think we are too early,” said Patricia, “it 
said four on the card.” 


136 


Patricia 


“And it is now a quarter to,” replied her aunt. 
“We shall just get there in nice time. ” 

“On the stroke, I should imagine”; and they 
did, though they were not by any means the first 
arrivals. 

“What tribes of people, and what quantities of 
clergy!” said Patricia. “It looks like a Church 
Congress.” 

“Dear Lady Muirfield entertains us all on an 
occasion of this kind,” said guileless Mrs. Vaughan. 

Patricia shrugged her shoulders. “A reduction 
through taking a quantity!” she murmured. “I 
hate huge garden parties like this. They are so 
dull.” 

“Remember, my love, we often take our dul- 
ness with us,” whispered her aunt. “I am sure 
there is every provision for a very happy after- 
noon, and I know, for one, that I shall find it so. ” 

Lady Muirfield’s greeting of Patricia was de- 
cidedly cool, though she overflowed with geniality 
towards her uncle and aunt. Golly was not 
there. His mother thought it best to arrange her 
garden party before his advent. Such a meeting 
of friends it was! The Vaughans almost shook 
their hands off, so hearty were their greetings, so 
delighted were they to meet the clergy from all 
sides of the diocese, who had been gathered from 
every quarter by the help of a special train and 
of several motors plying between the station and 
the Park. It was always a matter of real regret to 
Aunt Lucy that their proximity to Lynfield pre- 


“And I Did Eat” 


137 


vented her from participating in this department of 
the entertainment. The front of the house sup- 
ported a mass of bicycles which were propped 
against it many deep; and a quantity of wagon- 
ettes, bereft of their steeds, looked like rows of 
black skeletons on the edge of the park. 

“What a hideous flower garden !” exclaimed 
Patricia when she was first confronted with the 
glory of the bedding-out plants. “Anybody who 
has scarlet geraniums, lobelia, and calceolarias 
ought to be shot!” 

“Do you think so!” said Agnes aghast. “I 
thought them beautiful. Such a mass of colour, 
as Lady Muirfield always says!” 

“Lady Muirfield seems to deal in masses,” 
replied Patricia scornfully. “‘Such a mass of 
clergy and their collaterals this afternoon!” 

“I thought you would enjoy it so much,” said 
Agnes wistfully, “we always do.” 

“Well, do so still; I wouldn’t damp your enjoy- 
ment for the world,” and Patricia felt somewhat 
contrite. “Go off, and talk to your old friends 
and never mind me. I like to look on.” With 
which most untruthful statement Patricia turned 
back on to the terrace, and Agnes joined several 
people she knew on the lawn below. 

Nobody talked to Patricia, though several asked 
who the distinguished-looking girl in black was, 
who stood alone, but with an air of aloofness rather 
than of neglect. They supposed she was staying 
in the house, and passed on. But Patricia felt 


138 


Patricia 


the neglect in her very bones and marrow. She 
had always been a personage wherever she went, 
and everyone had known her, and most people 
had wanted to talk to her, and she had never 
supposed that things could be different. There is 
no blight so bitter and chilling as a social blight, 
and Patricia’s thoughts were neither pleasant nor 
peaceful as she stood on the terrace alone. It was 
not because she wanted to find friends among the 
hosts of county and clerical folk about her, but 
because she felt the sting of Lady Muirfield’s 
near-sighted policy in ignoring her as a personage. 
Her ladyship had determined in her sweet, obsti- 
nate way quietly to show Patricia her place, and 
Patricia immediately made up her mind to show 
that good lady that, when it came to a trial of 
strength, she would prove the stronger. War 
to the knife was what Patricia decided upon, but 
she still wondered why Lady Muirfield was so blind 
in imagining that she could deal with such a one 
as herself in the kindly, half -patronizing way which 
she extended towards Uncle George and Aunt 
Lucy, and for which they were truly thankful. 

If only Lady Muirfield could have grasped the 
fact that the Vaughans’ niece was wondering 
whether she could possibly bring herself to marry 
the heir of the house of Muirfield, as a punitive 
expedition on his mother’s account, she would 
have felt that the world was upside down indeed; 
but as she was mentally unable ever to do so it did 
not much matter. In the grip and interest of 


“And I Did Eat” 


139 


her book Patricia had somewhat forgotten Golly. 
The need for excitement in her life, which he had 
supplied, was being met by the thrilling absorp- 
tion of creative work, and he would probably have 
drifted out of her thoughts — he had never occupied 
a place in her heart — if it had not been for his 
mother’s garden party. Also in the quickened 
intellectual vigour which was the result of her 
literary work, Patricia felt more than ever impa- 
tient of Golly’s utter want of mental power. When 
she was homesick and sorrowful and dull he com- 
forted and cheered and amused her; but when she 
was keen and brilliant and invigorated, she felt 
she could not suffer Golly gladly. 

But though Lady Muirfield was quite capable 
of delivering a most effective social snub, she was 
too well-bred a woman to stand by and see one of 
her guests neglected, so she soon came up to Patricia 
with a diocesan spinster in tow. 

“Let me introduce Miss Merton to you,” she 
said smiling. “She is the Branch Secretary of the 
G. F. S. in this rural deanery, and a great help to 
us all, ” and Patricia found her hand being shaken 
with an agonizing grip, and a pair of pince-nez 
directed at her. 

“ Do you know the Jacksons of Fairfield? ” began 
Miss Merton, as if she had known Patricia for 
years; “they have left Fairfield now and gone to 
Blackheath. Do you know Blackheath, Miss 
Vaughan?” Before Patricia had time to reply 
her interlocutor proceeded: “And do you know 


140 


Patricia 


that girl who went with them as parlour-maid? 
I commended her myself to the local associate, 
Miss Hyndham. Do you know Miss Hyndham? 
She lives in Acacia Road.” 

“What is the G. F. S.?” asked Patricia, lan- 
guidly in manner, murderously in sentiment. 

“Aren’t you a member, or an associate?’’ asked 
Miss Merton sternly. “You ought to be. Or 
perhaps you give up your time entirely to the 
G. D. A.” 

“ I have not the slightest idea what the G. D. A. 
is,” murmured Patricia, but Miss Merton took no 
notice. 

“It is chiefly organized in this diocese by Gladys 
Goulbourn. Do you know the Goulboums? One 
of their servants has been commended to Rochester. 
I wonder whether you have ever met the organiz- 
ing Secretary of the C. A. A. S. in Rochester.” 

“I know none of the people you do, I am afraid. 
You see,” went on Patricia, goaded to extremity, 
“ I escaped from a convent before I came here, and 
that is why I have never met the Goulbourns or 
the Hyndhams or the Jacksons or their parlour- 
maids.” 

“A convent!” exclaimed Miss Merton. “I 
understood Lady Muirfield that you were the 
daughter of a man who wrote a little. And that 
reminds me of Mrs. Locock — she wrote for the 
Mothers’ Union cover — not the magazine itself, 
but the diocesan cover. Do you know Mrs. 
Locock? She had a niece living with her called 


“And I Did Eat” 


141 

Miriam, but perhaps you have met her — she lives 
in Clapton?” 

“I think my aunt is beckoning me?” said Pa- 
tricia, and she escaped with her life, but not with 
her temper. 

“How insufferable these people are with their 
alphabetic associations and utter ignorance of any 
other world! Imagine knowing any one’s niece 
who lives in Clapton ! It is worse than sorting the 
Pleiades. I don’t wonder people aren’t religious 
if this is the kind of thing it breeds. Oh! how 
I shall write after an awful afternoon like this! 
I shall do the Wellingborough correspondence, 
and I don’t care whether the son ever sees it or not. 
Indeed, I would rather like him to, if he is one of 
these typical clergymen with a cramped mind and 
a conventional constitution. It will rouse him up 
a bit and give him something to think of beyond 
his A B C’s or whatever the things are called. 
As far as I can see the clergy not only don’t 
make people good, they make them positively 
wicked. I never felt like this at home. I never 
wanted to hurt any one until I was thrown with all 
these religious people. Of course Aunt Lucy is a 
dear, but she lives with her head in a sack all the 
same, and Uncle George works her like a barge 
horse. He always reminds me of a man on a canal 
boat lounging over the rudder, while aunt cheer- 
fully pulls the boat along from the bank path. I 
hate the country, and I hate the clergy; but I’ll 
make my Lady Muirfield knock under yet,” with 


142 


Patricia 


which pious reflections Patricia joined her aunt 
at a little table, whereon the preliminaries of tea 
were spread. 

Aunt Lucy took off both her gloves, and ex- 
tracted her pocket-handkerchief from a petticoat 
pocket, and prepared to enjoy her tea. Patricia 
nibbled dry biscuits which would not hurt her 
black suede glove. 

“Take it off, love,” advised her aunt. “Dear 
Lady Muirfield always provides such a beautiful 
tea, and such delicious fruit and ices. I do enjoy 
the fruit and ices so much, don’t you?” beaming 
on the wife of a neighbouring vicar. 

“I do indeed, Mrs. Vaughan. I never taste a 
peach except here.” 

“I must confess to being quite a child over ices, 
too,” said Aunt Lucy. “There is a sort of party 
taste about them that makes me a girl again.” 

“And it is so nice being able to sit down and 
have it all comfortably,” continued the other 
lady. “My husband and I look forward to this 
gathering all the year.” 

And because Patricia was young and hard and 
ignorant, she thought these good women were 
greedy and second-rate. She failed to see the 
infinite pathos of the truth that a good tea could 
prove so great a treat to gentlewomen of culture 
and refinement, who had given not only their 
energies, but their very class and caste, to the 
work which is so untiringly done in low-lying 
places, at the cost of a personal self-denial which 


“And I Did Eat” 


143 


is undreamed-of even by the nearest neighbours. 
She looked with amazement on her aunt’s beaming 
face, and her cheek burned hot with resentment at 
the sweetly patronizing hospitality which exuded 
from Lady Muirfield, as she moved about among 
her guests, and lavished good things upon them. 
She also tried to restrain Aunt Lucy from jumping 
up continually to minister to someone else’s wants, 
and to see that the cherished peaches were fairly 
distributed. 

“Your aunt must take care of herself, too, as 
well as of other people,’’ said their hostess in con- 
ciliatory tones to Patricia, for there was a look on 
the girl’s small, proud face which made her slightly 
uncomfortable. 

“She never will. And of course she’s too old to 
learn, — people always are. By the way, Lady 
Muirfield, who is that old lady on the terrace? 
I am sure I know her face.” 

“That is my aunt, Lady Waterlow. She and 
my mother were sisters of the late Lord Welling- 
borough.” 

Patricia started. “My father knew him very 
well.” 

“I daresay,” and Lady Muirfield drew back 
a trifle into her former manner. “ My uncle knew 
a great many people, of course.” 

“My father was one of his most intimate 
friends, ” repeated Patricia. 

“Indeed. I never heard him speak of him,” 
replied her ladyship coldly, and thereby struck the 


144 


Patricia 


match which finally fired the train of quiet grey 
gunpowder. 

“He was a very distinguished man,” said 
Patricia mockingly. 

“He was indeed. Ambassador in many coun- 
tries — but I must be going to look after my guests,” 
and Lady Muirfield hurried away, unconscious, 
as we usually are, of the consequences of our care- 
less words. 

“Lady Muirfield always seems more genial on 
local topics,” said Aunt Lucy, who felt the elec- 
tricity but could not locate the battery. 

“When she talks to me,” said Patricia, “it 
will not be on local topics, so I am afraid I shan’t 
see Lady Muirfield at her best. ” 

“A little fruit, my love?” suggested her aunt, 
“you have had no tea at all. And after the party 
here I never trouble much about a supper,” she 
whispered. 

“I am not hungry,” said her niece, “but I am 
tired. I think it is the heat. I shall slip off and 
find my own way home, for you will be staying 
later, I suppose?” 

“To the end,” said Aunt Lucy heartily. “I 
wouldn’t miss five minutes of it for the world. ” 

“A beautiful girl!” exclaimed the neighbouring 
vicar’s wife as Patricia strolled off, “but, I imagine, 
difficult to understand.” 

“I don’t know much of the world,” said Mrs. 
Vaughan, “but I do know this, that the orphans 
who need our prayers are those who have never 


'‘And I Did Eat” 


i45 


had good parents, not those who have only lost 
them. My dear niece’s mother died at her birth, 
and her father brought her up, or rather I should 
say left her to grow up, in a home and circle where 
God was neither known nor honoured. Nothing 
can make up to a child for the loss of early religious 
training/ ’ 

“And yet our children seem to outgrow the old 
ways.” 

“Their souls may wander far from home but 
they know where home is, and in nine cases out of 
ten come back to it. But Patricia’s soul has never 
had a home, poor child! Oh, we children of the 
rectories and manses have so much to be thankful 
for! Indeed, the longer I live, the more I find 
I have to be thankful for. It is wonderful how 
rich life is,” and Aunt Lucy’s smile irradiated her 
homely face until it was almost beautiful. 

As Patricia sat down at her writing-table in the 
quiet hush of late afternoon, her thoughts burned 
hot and flaring, with one of those unaccountable 
firings which consume creative minds. Her pen 
flew faster than legibility, and the chapter which 
contained the Wellingborough letters flashed into 
a vivid setting for that illuminating revelation 
of character. The realization that the wicked, 
dishonourable, slander-loving old diplomat was an 
uncle of that most righteous lady of Muirfield, 
and that he was the father of probably another 
equally narrow and conventional personification 
of piety, gave to Patricia a stimulus in dealing 


zo 


146 


Patricia 


with her material to which it owed its most 
dramatic and subtle force. When first she read 
the correspondence, Lord Wellingborough’s part 
in it was to her only the foil for her father’s 
counterpart, the dark and dusty background 
against which his exquisite taste and inherent 
good feeling stood out white and clear. But, 
lashed as she was into action by Lady Muirfield’s 
studied coldness, and by her own misunderstand- 
ing contempt for all that stands for the outward 
and visible signs of ordinary religious conventions, 
she began to re-create the unhealthy vitiated at- 
mosphere of Lord Wellingborough’s intimate life, 
and to gather therein the poisonous plants which 
bloomed to base results all round about him. She 
began to see right down into the rotten core of his 
suggestions, and she smiled in triumph when her 
father, with a tact and taste beyond all praise, 
replied to letters which never ought to have been 
written by any honourable man, much less by the 
trusted ambassador of a great nation. 

For several hours she wrote without pause, and 
then, with the detachment of all artists, she read 
her manuscript, and knew that it was good. She 
wondered, no less than the world would wonder 
by and by, from whence had come the power to 
write so simply, so subtly, so strongly; for it was 
not the hand or the head of a girl only which could 
have done this thing. She knew there was a power 
outside and beyond her limitations, which had 
guided her words and made them alive; and to 


“And I Did Eat” 


i47 


that power, which men call genius, she bowed in 
delighted awe. She realized then that she had not 
talent, for talent is of and in oneself, and re- 
fines and exalts the personality by its expression ; 
but she recognized the touch of genius which was 
passing her way. For genius neither uplifts nor 
improves its child as talent does, it strikes like 
lightning, through some conductor, and leaves it 
unaltered after the magic passing. Only a copper 
wire, but by it heavenly fire came down unto the 
earth. Patricia had always known that she was 
clever — she knew that she had a place in the upper 
school of intellectual life, — but it was not till the 
memorable afternoon of Lady Muirfield’s garden 
party that she realized that genius had struck her 
— and then left her when the storm was over, as 
it always does, a copper wire still. She folded up 
her papers with a reverent touch. 

“It is just impossible that I could have written 
it, ” she said to herself with a radiant smile. 

“What a perfect afternoon we have had!” ex- 
claimed Aunt Lucy fervently on their return, as 
she sank, incapable of one more step, into a basket 
chair. 

“It was indeed an occasion of extreme enjoy- 
ment, ” said the rector, “and smiled upon by 
Providence with unclouded sunshine.” 

“I remember,” suggested Patricia, “that in that 
priceless volume The Fairchild Family there was 
one special hymn to be used ‘on occasions of 
peculiar delight in the open air.’ I always won- 


148 


Patricia 


dered what they would be, but the Muirfields* 
garden party seems to supply the answer.” 

“I do wish, Patricia,” said her cousin Maggie 
with asperity, “that you wouldn’t jeer at all our 
things. ” 

“Oh, Maggie!” cried the loyal Agnes, “Patricia 
never jeers. ” 

“Oh, yes, she does! Her jeers may be all 
wrapped up in cleverness, or humour, or politeness, 
or what you will, but they are jeers all the same. 
And our things are as good as any one else’s,” 
added her cousin hotly, “and there was no more 
to jeer at in a party of country clergy and county 
magnates, than there is at a party of politicians 
or writers in London. But there Patricia stood on 
that terrace, like a silly princess in a Paris frock, 
which was much too chiffony for the country, 
looking as if she despised us all. ” 

“My love!” said her mother feebly. She felt 
there was justice in her daughter’s words, but not 
justice tempered with mercy. 

“And,” continued Maggie whom, once started, 
nothing could stop, “it is not only at our parties 
and our enjoyments that you jeer, you jeer at our 
work and our religion down underneath your good 
manners, and I can tell you that we have much 
more right to jeer at your idleness and ignor- 
ance, for life is something more than you think 
it is. You never heard such words as principle 
and duty and righteousness and — you ought to 
be ashamed of yourself, ” she added with a sud- 


“And I Did Eat” 


149 


den drop from justifiable anger into personal 
temper. 

Patricia sat very still and looked very pale. 

“But the fact of the matter is you think our 
friends are common,” persisted Maggie, “and you 
despise them for that.” 

“I despise Lady Muirfield, ” said Patricia 
slowly, “not because I think her common, for she 
is not, but because she is stupid. Though all the 
same, I think you are right, Maggie. I have got 
into rather a jeering way. Some of my book has 
fed that part of me lately. What you write always 
influences yourself. That is why a bad book is so 
bad — it makes its writer bad even though it may 
not make its readers so. ” 

“You have a wonderfully sweet temper, my 
love, ” whispered Aunt Lucy, stroking her niece’s 
hand, “not to get angry with Maggie and answer 
her back.” 

“Of course bad people write bad books,” 
grunted Maggie. 

“No, it is the other way about, — the writing 
moulds the person, not the person the writing. ” 

“Are you writing about someone who is bad, 
cousin?” asked Agnes, “even in your father’s 
life?” 

“Yes,” replied Patricia. “ I have been living in 
a nasty, cynical, slanderous world, and it shows, 
evidently, from what Maggie says. ” 

“You are impossible!” exclaimed her cousin 
angrily, “nothing touches the real you. You 


150 


Patricia 


stand outside yourself, and look on and criti- 
cize yourself in a most unnatural manner. 
Won’t anything make you feel — you heartless 
girl?” 

“Hush, hush!” interrupted Aunt Lucy. “We 
must not let a cloudy evening spoil the remem- 
brance of a sunny day. I know Patricia does not 
understand our ways, or our work, or the Motive 
Power behind it all — but — but — for that we must 
not blame you, love. No one has ever taught you 
truth, dear child ; and we in our poor, simple ways 
cannot teach you now, for you have grown beyond 
the alphabet of things, — and yet it is just the 
A B C of life you do not know, and that is why, 
perhaps, you do not read aright.” 

“Our ways aren’t poor and simple, mother,” 
broke in Maggie, red with rage. “They are the 
Church’s ways, and the Church of England is 
surely big enough to hold Patricia. ” 

“It isn’t a question of bigness, Maggie, nor of 
the Church of England. It is just the question of 
our poor, feeble, erring lives, which are too stupid 
to tell the truth and too faulty to illustrate it. ” 

“And what is the alphabet that I have never 
learned?” asked Patricia. 

“ I call it to myself the Love of God, ” said Aunt 
Lucy gently, “but then I am no theologian.” 

“But would that affect such things as the Muir- 
fields’ garden party?” asked Patricia curiously. 

Aunt Lucy closed her eyes for a moment before 
answering. 


“And I Did Eat” 


151 

“When you were reading that wonderful diary 
of the great Antarctic explorer the other day, how 
much of it was full of lowly duties, and how little 
that brave company of men considered their 
clothes, or their comforts, or their social position! 
And the reason of this was that they were all in- 
spired by a great object, and that inspiration be- 
littled all that they were called to endure, but it 
increased their powers of enjoyment. Did not you 
read aloud to us the description of their Christmas 
dinner, and their pleasure in partaking of it all 
together! Now, my dear, the great band of the 
clergy are going forth through life inspired by a 
wonderful ideal. And it is so big that they cease 
to care about their poverty or their dress or any 
social pretensions. These things are swallowed up 
and lost sight of in the object of their journey, nor 
do they think any duty too small to claim them. 
Was not one of these explorers, who afterwards 
was called to meet a hero’s death, told off to attend 
to the animals, and did he not spend whole days 
in keeping the ponies from falling down in the gale, 
and in ministering to the sick dogs? So these 
country parishes are full of lowly work which no 
one need despise. And our treats come, too, some- 
times, as this one came today. And we all meet 
and feast together, and write it in our diaries as 
worthy of record; for it is not those who live easy, 
luxurious lives at home who know how to enjoy 
themselves, but those who are living to work and 
fight and march. And I think, Patricia, that when 


152 


Patricia 


you understand this you will see that as there is 
nothing to jeer at in that simple description of a 
jolly Christmas dinner away down by the South 
Pole, so there is nothing to make fun of in such 
a gathering as we all enjoyed so much this 
afternoon.” 

“I see, aunt — and I am sorry,” said Patricia, 
a softer look on her hard young face. “It seems 
to have been I who was stupid and conventional 
and ignorant.” 

“I have never heard you speak like this, 
Lucy,” remarked the rector reprovingly. “It 
has appeared most strange to me; and I must 
say that if Patricia is to learn about religious 
life she had better study Whately and some 
of the divines who have dealt with these mat- 
ters properly, and not in such a fantastic 
manner.” 

“I know I put things badly,” replied his wife 
humbly, “but sometimes it seems given to me what 
to say. It was to me just then. ” 

“You couldn't have answered me better, dear 
aunt. It has made me think and wonder about 
things, and brushed some of the cheap dust away. 
But still I do not believe in your great expedition 
you know.” 

“ You can’t, my love, just yet!” 

“Why not?” 

“ Because no one can ever understand about it or 
believe in it until their blind eyes and hearts are 
opened.” 


“And I Did Eat” 


i53 


“And what are your prescriptions for curing 
that blindness ?” asked Patricia again. 

“There is only one, dear — the Touch of Christ. 
‘And as many as touched Him were made per- 
fectly whole. * ” 


CHAPTER VII 


GOLLY’ S CHANCES 

“Golly is home again,” announced Patricia, 
looking up from a pile of letters on the breakfast 
table. 

“How do you know?” asked Maggie, “has he 
written to you?” disapprovingly. 

“He often writes to me,” replied her cousin, 
“but this is a letter from Freda asking me to lunch 
with the guns on Friday. ” 

“What treats you have!” exclaimed Agnes. 

“Does Freda say that her brother is back?” 
persisted Maggie. 

“Oh no! she doesn’t mention him. But one 
thing is certain. I should never be invited to one 
of the Muirfield shoots unless Golly had insisted 
upon it. Isn’t it funny,” she continued ab- 
stractedly, “that women like Lady Muirfield, who 
rule their husbands and households with an iron 
hand, are often afraid of their eldest sons? I 
can’t imagine any one’s being afraid of Golly — 
but his mother is. ” 

“ How do you know she is? It is probably only 
a piece of your imagination,” said Maggie sprink- 
154 


Golly* s Chances 


155 


ling her porridge freely with salt. She despised 
people who ate their porridge with sugar, of whom 
Patricia was one, just as people who refuse cream 
in their tea are always slightly superior to those 
who do not. 

“This letter is a proof, but of course I know it 
apart from that. It is stupid to want proofs of 
things. Knowing a thing is so much bigger than 
proving it. ” 

“Yes indeed, my love!” exclaimed Aunt Lucy 
from behind the coffee-pot, “and that is why — ” 
and then she stopped. 

“Well?” queried the rector. 

“I don’t think I will say it,” confessed Mrs. 
Vaughan with rather a heightened colour. “It 
is wiser sometimes to be silent, though we women 
don’t often think so.” 

“And because a thing isn’t spoken,” said 
Patricia, “it does not necessarily mean that it is 
not understood. ” 

Aunt Lucy stretched out her hand below the 
table-cloth’s horizon and squeezed that of her niece. 

“You have taught me much, Patricia,” she 
said lovingly, “ sometimes even to check my word 
in season.” 

“ I don’t in the least comprehend what you are 
driving at, Lucy,” said Uncle George, “ and it is 
absurd to talk of our niece’s having taught you 
anything. Patricia seems to me to be in too much 
need of fundamental education herself to instruct 
others, much less a clergyman’s wife such as 


156 


Patricia 


yourself. And I disagree with you in the desir- 
ability of leaving words in season unspoken. 
They are opportunities which when lost once are 
lost for ever. * Cast thy bread upon the waters ’ 
you know applies to words as well as to deeds. ” 

“I am sure the waters in Aunt Lucy’s vicinity 
must be converted into bread sauce by now,” re- 
marked Patricia, and her uncle looked reprovingly 
over the top of his spectacles. 

“I do not like your flippant speech,” he said 
solemnly, “you should curb it.” 

Agnes looked down with crimsoned cheeks for 
her cousin’s sake. A reproof such as that would 
have reduced her to tears. It was like a douche of 
cold water over her perturbed spirits when Patricia 
coolly continued, as if there had been no break, 
the original conversation. 

“Of course to people like Lady Muirfield the 
eldest son is an institution as well as an individual. 
He stands for the family. She isn’t in the least 
afraid of that clever Gerald, nor the cherubic 
Reggie, — and as for the girls, they are frightened 
to death of their mother! There is something 
merciless about Lady Muirfield’s sweetness. I 
am sorry for Freda; and yet I believe deep down 
in her hidden soul she is half glad she isn’t good- 
looking, and so one of her ladyship’s domestic 
arrangements has not proved immaculate.” 

“Lady Muirfield has been a very successful 
woman, and deservedly so,” said Aunt Lucy 
loyally. 


Golly' s Chances 


157 


“ I don’t think there was any question of deserv- 
ing in it,” argued her niece. “Nice things have 
just been showered upon her. But all the same 
the question remains, — would you rather have nice 
things, or be nice? Because the two don’t always, 
if ever, go together. ” 

“Except in Lady Muirfield’s case,” repeated 
her aunt, and Patricia laughed. 

It was a glorious day of early autumn, when the 
summer appeared especially attractive on account 
of its nearing departure, and Patricia strolled 
slowly up the hill on a meaningless and purposeful 
walk. The lovely valley of the river lay still and 
green and lush at her feet, and away in the distance 
the highroad wound like a white ribbon through 
the square-cut fields from which the harvest had 
been safely gathered in. The picturesque ploughs 
were creeping over some of the land, and leaving 
their rich brown furrows ruled as if with the pre- 
cision of some geometrical design rather than the 
instinct of a farm-bred eye. The fading foliage 
of the woods burned and glowed in the sunshine in 
clumps of ruddy colour, as she mounted higher, 
and the distant hills were folded one behind the 
other in equally varying shades of blue. The 
pleasant rustle of leaves beneath her feet, the 
joyous singing of different birds, the solemn caw of 
the rook, and the flurried screech of the pheasant, 
all joined in that most beautiful chorus — the 
chorus of the open air — and Patricia felt that after 
all there was something very good in the country 


158 


Patricia 


which man has had no hand in making. But 
she had not come out to enjoy these sights and 
sounds, beautiful though they were ; she was taking 
so long and lonely a walk because she felt sure 
that it would turn out to be neither. She hoped 
to meet Golly on the hillside, and she did. 

“Oh, Patricia !” he exclaimed as they met, “I 
have missed you so!” 

“Wasn’t London nice?” she asked as they stood 
together looking over a gate, with unseeing eyes, 
at the exquisite view. 

“Not without you,” he said impulsively, “no- 
thing is nice really unless you are there. ” 

“Don’t let us talk about me,” said Patricia, 
shying womanlike from the one object which she 
wanted most to discuss; “tell me all about what 
you have been doing, and how many times you 
have been in love since Easter?” 

“Not once, Patricia! Upon my honour, not one 
single once. And I haven’t done anything inter- 
esting — in fact I’ve done nothing at all. ” 

“Oh, Golly! And I thought you were a truth- 
ful boy.” 

“I am not a boy at all — and you make a jolly 
big mistake if you think I am. I am a man, and 
men know how to wait for things,” he added 
significantly. 

“Women don’t, anyway. Their wishes are like 
fresh fish which goes bad with keeping. ” 

“ Men’s are like old port, then. They strengthen 
and improve with keeping.” 


Golly’s Chances 159 

“ Oh ! you are a fine and superior race, you men ! ” 
gibed Patricia. 

‘‘What rot! We are just ordinary, you know, 
and always have been.” 

“‘Your name is Normal on the Gramppian 
Hills, ’” misquoted Patricia. “Yes, I’ve never 
doubted your ordinariness, but I think it’s bigger 
and finer than our extraordinariness on the whole, 
even if it is at times a little duller. ” 

“There you go and spoil it all ! I was beginning 
to feel quite bucked up. But I say, Patricia, 
I am glad you are sound on the woman question 
and all that.” 

“How do you know that I am?” 

“Well, your talk, of course, shows you know 
that men are — are — oh! you know what I 
mean. And when women go in for that sort of 
thing they just hack it all up, and themselves into 
the bargain. I’d hate you to be one of that lot. ” 

“I should go into Parliament if I were you, 
Golly. You possess the quality of lucidity in 
debate. ” 

“ Don’t rag. It’s not a bit funny. I know I’m 
not clever and one of your sort — I never have been 
— but I’ve thought a lot about some things lately, 
and I know what I think about them, too. ” 

“And you’ve come to the conclusion that you’re 
a lord of creation. So you are, and you’ll be a lord 
of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ire- 
land, some day, and that is almost more important 
still!” 


i6o 


Patricia 


“I do think it is horrid of you to be so horrid — 
and just my first day at home, too! It is no fun 
if you’re going to fool round everything I say. I 
jolly well shan’t say it — and then it’ll be duller 
still”; and Golly glowered at his boots. 

“For heaven’s sake don’t be cross. Your 
temper is not what it used to be, I regret to say. ” 

“ It’s soon over at any rate,” said Golly, cheering 
up. 

“You are like the man in Punch , who made a 
similar remark when he had smashed all the fur- 
niture to atoms and the windows besides ” 

“And who are you like, eh, Patricia?” broke in 
Golly triumphantly. “There was somebody else 
in that picture — and that was his wife! Good 
score that for me, ” and he laughed joyfully. 

“Now you’re silly, and that is worse than being 
cross — much worse, because it isn’t soon over.” 

“I’m nothing of the kind. I’m too clever for 
you, my dear, for once.” And the young man’s 
laugh rang out in noisy exuberance. 

“I don’t fool round your arguments,” said 
Patricia, hurriedly returning to the original charge, 
“indeed as regards men and women the boot seems 
permanently on the other leg. I believe half the 
woman question, as you call it, is founded on the 
fact that men don’t take women seriously enough. ” 
“Good Lord!” ejaculated Golly. “Women 
seem to me the most serious things in the world. 
First it’s your nurse with her slappings and scold- 
ings, and then it’s your mother, if she’s anything 


Golly’s Chances 


161 


like mine, and then it’s the girl you are in love with, 
and if things aren’t serious enough by then, why 
there’s nothing left but the Day of Judgment. ” 

“Oh, yes, there is! There’s a wife. She may 
not be altogether a joke, you know. ” 

“I’ll tell you more about that by and by,” 
said Golly smiling to himself. 

“The way in which men have treated suffra- 
gettes, as if they were naughty children, is enough 
to drive any woman to desperation. Why when 
Aunt Lucy offers us her glowing wisdom, which is 
above rubies, and Uncle George condescendingly 
treats it as if it were a pink comfit, I could set 
fire to a Dean and Chapter myself — I am so 
furious.” 

“A bit of a stodger, your Uncle George!” 

“When I attended the Red Cross lectures they 
told us if people swallowed needles and pins to 
make thick porridge and unravel lots of wool into 
it to give them. That comestible is very Uncle 
Georgian.” 

“ I knew a girl who got a pin stuck in her throat 
and they rayed her and then picked up the pin 
with a magnetized swab,” said Golly. 

“How wonderful! I never thought they got 
pins out of people’s throats like that.” 

“ Did you think they enticed them by kindness? ” 

Patricia laughed, as they kicked their way 
through drifts of crisp brown leaves, and breathed 
in the lingering sunshine of a still, dry autumn day. 

“I am writing, Golly,” said Patricia at length, 


Patricia 


162 

and her voice seemed to hover over the words 
with the tender touch of mother love. 

“ Writing what? You’ve kept me pretty short 
of letters, you know.” 

“I am writing my father’s Life and editing his 
letters.” 

Golly’s face clouded over. 

“ I wish you weren’t, ” he said simply. 

“You wish that ! ’ ’ exclaimed Patricia. 1 1 What 
ever for? I have never done anything in my life 
that I love so much.” 

“That’s it. It takes you off, somehow, right 
out of my world; and I don’t like women to — to 
do things, you know. ” 

Patricia looked at him curiously and compas- 
sionately, for she knew that Golly was throwing 
away something which she could never give back 
to him, however much she might wish to please 
him, or to displease his mother. She simply could 
not marry a man who did not like women to do 
things. For she knew by her instinctive genius, 
what many an older woman knows by experi- 
ence, that the boyish boys make the manliest 
men, and there is an obstinate power behind 
their principles against which no woman is 
strong enough to fight, even if she may be clever 
enough to elude it. She knew that now she could 
play with Golly like a ball and throw him hither 
and thither, but she also knew that if she married 
him he was one of the men who would not only go 
his own way, but would expect his wife to accom- 


Golly’s Chances 


163 

pany him on that prescribed journey, and would, 
moreover, insist upon her so doing. And oh! 
how dull life would be! She could not even now 
talk to him any more about this consuming inter- 
est, for creative power is sensitive to the slightest 
touch, and withers under it as flowers vanish at 
the breath of fire. No, Golly’s wife could never 
do things. 

“ I adore the sadness of autumn, ” she said with a 
quick change of subject. 

“Not much sadness about it, to me,” replied 
her companion. “The jolliest time of the whole 
year with all the shooting on and the hunting 
beginning again. What is there to be sad about, 
I’d like to know?” 

“Don’t you understand that really enjoyable 
sadness is the kind that comes when there is not 
anything to be sad about? I love feeling sad 
when I know I am happy. ” 

“Well I don’t. I think it’s rotten to feel sad 
anyway, and when I know I’m happy it’s by 
feeling that I am, of course, so I don’t see where 
your plan comes in. I say, don’t let’s begin 
bothering about sadness. Are you coming on Fri- 
day to the shoot? I made them — ” and then he 
stopped confusedly, but Patricia quickly saw and 
helped. 

“I am coming because you want me to,” she 
said gently, “not because shoots are much in my 
line. ” 

Patricia was artist enough to be able to see 


164 


Patricia 


things from the other person’s point of view, and 
so her manners were always good; for good man- 
ners have their root in sympathy, and sympathy 
is but another name for looking at life from the 
other person’s standpoint with understanding eyes. 
She knew that Golly had had a fight before that 
invitation to her was dispatched — he had almost 
told her so in his boyish unreserve — and she knew 
exactly how he felt. Therefore she hastened to 
meet him with a graciousness that instantly wiped 
out all ruffled remembrances; moreover, she felt 
very tender towards him just then. “Freda sent 
me such a nice little letter, ” she added. 

Golly beamed. “We’ll have a rippin’ day,” 
he said gladly. 

And such indeed it proved to be from Golly’s 
point of view. 

There is perhaps no more typical English day, 
both as regards recreation and character, than 
that of an ordinary shoot. It forms a picture of 
places and people which could be framed nowhere 
but in our British Isles. There is the consuming 
interest of the sport itself, there is the unselfish 
discipline of the well-ordered placing, and the ne- 
cessary restraint of firing only in turn. There 
is the steady exercise of the tramps across fields 
and through bracken or undergrowth, there is the 
patient waiting while the beaters do their work, 
and the untiring interest of a possible shot. There 
is skill and comradeship, and the give-and-take 
spirit; there is the healthy appetite and the com- 


Golly’s Chances 


165 


fortable lunch, and the natural, commonplace 
conversation. There is the heavy joke, and the 
lighted pipe, and then the sport again up and down 
the beautiful countryside with its glory of autumn 
and its hum of animal life. All this is intensely 
and elementally English, and Golly was never more 
at home than in this purely English setting. 

Patricia watched him with a vital interest, for 
never did she fully realize all that Golly might 
mean to her until she had seen the eventual 
necessity of letting him go by. And so perverse is 
the heart of man — or rather of woman — that she 
began clinging to and clasping all that Golly stood 
for, just because her subconscious sense had told 
her that it could never be hers. 

It was not one of the best shoots — Lady Muir- 
field came out herself to those — but the uncertainty 
of the birds lent an added excitement to the true 
sportsman’s heart, and Golly stood, graceful and 
alert, watching the line of the wood through which 
the beaters were calling, while Patricia sat on his 
shooting stick and looked on, and into, the whole 
situation. 

She had not written a line of her book since her 
last walk with Golly. The flickering power to do 
so had smouldered back into the ashes, and she 
was beginning to argue with herself that so fickle a 
gift might be bought too dear. Supposing she made 
up her mind not to “do things, ” but was content 
to take the much that Golly could give, and be the 
kind of wife that Golly would want, and live the 


Patricia 


1 66 

life that Golly would mean; would it not after all 
be the happiest life that she could ever hope to 
have? Would not this clean, straight, simple- 
hearted boy grow into the type of man who would 
•command her respect, even if he failed to win her 
love? She was of course sure, as all writers are, 
that she was putting into her present book all that 
she would ever have to say, and therefore when 
that was finished and published, why should she 
devote the rest of her life to waiting for a renewal 
of power which would probably never come? 

Crack, crack, went the guns into the whirr of 
the birds, and Patricia, with all her fastidious dis- 
like of the taking of life, yet felt a touch of triumph 
when each cartridge claimed a victim, and the 
beautiful golden pheasants fell heavily into the 
bracken. Such is the power of racial influence, 
and Patricia found herself wondering whether she 
would not, if transplanted entirely into Golly’ s 
sphere, find herself gradually adapted even in in- 
clination to her environment, and after a while 
become perfectly satisfied therein. It was because 
she had made up her mind not to marry Golly that 
she began to argue and convince herself into doing 
so. 

“We had better go to lunch now,’’ he suggested, 
as they worked down the hillside to where a quaint 
little dark farm lay frowning in the mellow sun- 
shine of that October day. Freda and her friends, 
— two young women whose husbands were shoot- 
ing, — climbed through the undergrowth and over 


Golly’ s Chances 


167 


the hedges, but Golly hung behind with Patricia, 
and, with the true instinct of a man in love, he ap- 
peared to be under the impression that she was ab- 
solutely helpless and quite crippled, therefore it 
required all his skill and strength to convey her 
safely in the wake of the others. 

Now Patricia was one of the women who natu- 
rally enjoy the cripple attitude; she hated doing 
things for herself when there was a handy man to 
do them for her, and the detached independence of 
the other girls seemed to her boring and dull. 
Patricia was modern in mind but primitive in 
nature, whereas Freda was exactly the opposite, 
with an old-fashioned mind and an up-to-date 
character. Of course Patricia could really run as 
fast as Freda, only, while the latter loved to take 
her exercise between the wickets or on the hockey 
field or after the hounds, the former used her 
fleetness chiefly in running away from the wooers 
who, woman-like, she wished would capture her. 
This inherent difference from his sister was proba- 
bly the reason why Golly wanted to marry Pa- 
tricia. Men always fancy a change of type in 
the womankind they inherit and that which they 
choose. He had had a tweed sister so he wanted a 
chiffon wife. 

Patricia hated the lunch in the quaint low-ceiled 
parlour that smelt of Irish-stew and beer and to- 
bacco, a meal needing the condiment of hunger 
with which it should always be served. Oleo- 
graphs of the late farmer and his wife decorated 


i68 


Patricia 


the walls, and stern nonconformity stencilled the 
features of the departed householder, especially 
his grim mouth and chin above a beard which was 
confined exclusively to the region of the throat. 
The wife’s picture showed signs of past prettiness 
and present resignation; her lace cap and collar 
framed a faded face and her lips looked as if they 
could not answer back, but were compressed into 
a line of patience which would never relax, not 
even when she lay in her coffin. A whole story 
leapt up into Patricia’s imagination as she looked 
at these two characteristic portraits, but the party 
talked and laughed and ate and drank with a 
heartiness that was utterly alien to Patricia’s 
perceptions. One man had a big, deep laugh that 
almost crushed her, so mighty was its volume 
and so surprising its outbursts. And the young 
married women made meaningless jokes, and the 
girls giggled, and Patricia felt miles away. 

“This is one of our rough lunches,” explained 
Golly apologetically, “but Freda and the girls like 
it better than the smart ones when my mother 
comes.” 

“It is always such fun,” said his sister, “and 
this is specially Golly ’s shoot. There’s so much 
more adventure about it than in the big drives, 
and more sport, too.” 

“We have over one hundred birds already,” said 
somebody, “and that’s not bad by lunch time.” 
And then they drifted into the discussion of sport 
in general, and pheasant shooting in particular, un- 


Golly’s Chances 169 

til it was time to go out and begin it all over 
again. 

Patricia was tired and began to feel cold. Golly 
was absorbed in the shooting, and the other girls 
were almost as intent as the men, waiting through 
the hushes for the erratic flights of the startled 
birds. So the afternoon wore on, as empty of 
interest to Patricia as it was full to her host and 
his party. She thought she could never be happy 
if married to a sportsman who lived for little else. 
But when the luxurious Muirfield motors were 
whirling them home to tea, she came to the con- 
clusion that Golly might not prove an entirely 
undesirable husband after all. 

All through the autumn Patricia lived in a 
perpetual unrest. She saw Golly from time to 
time when he ran down for week-ends, but there 
was no advance or retreat in affairs between them. 
She felt that matters need not come to a head till 
Freda’s ball, which had been postponed until after 
Easter so that Gerald, who was now in the Medi- 
terranean with his ship, might be at home for it ; 
but she also felt that by then she must have made 
up her mind on so momentous a question. 

Her writing dragged heavily while her mind was 
thus occupied, and the loss of creative power was 
a perpetual fret and pain, from which she could not 
escape. The busy life of the rectory and the 
parish ebbed and flowed like the untiring tide, 
but though it played unceasingly round her feet 
it never rose to touch her real interests. She 


170 


Patricia 


had no relief from herself, and no resource outside 
herself on which to draw. Therefore it was a bad 
time for Patricia, though she extracted an enjoy- 
able amount of unhealthy excitement from the 
presence of possibilities, with which she was always 
playing in imagination, but of which she really 
took no hold, either for keeping or for casting 
away. 

“Aren’t you going to finish your book?” asked 
Maggie crudely, as she watched Patricia’s drifting 
ways. 

“ Of course I am,” replied her cousin impatiently, 
“only I am not in the mood for writing just now. ” 

“Surely you don’t need much mood for the 
relating of events or the arrangement of letters. 
It seems a pity to waste so much time. ” 

“ If I can’t write, I can’t; and nothing can make 
me until the power comes back again. I want to 
write — but I can’t,” and Patricia’s voice melted 
from irritation into longing. 

“It is all rubbish about needing certain moods 
before we can do our work,” continued Maggie. 
“A fine state of things that would end in if every- 
one followed your example. I dare say the cook 
might not be in the mood for getting the dinner, 
but you wouldn’t like to go hungry. The fact is, 
Patricia, you ought to pull yourself together and 
do your duty, if it ever strikes you that you have 
a duty to do.” 

“ Some people make you write, ” mused Patricia, 
“but they are not here, 


Colly’s Chances 


171 

“We are not literary people, I suppose,” said 
Maggie a little huffily. 

“I don’t mean literary people at all. I once 
went to see a popular writer and she made me feel 
as if my head was full of dry toast ; and there was 
a man my father knew, a business man who had 
never written a line in his life, and after he had 
been I could always write splendidly.” 

“I do not think you should speak of your own 
writing as splendid.” 

“Except when it happens to be so.” 

“Even if it ever is, — not then. ‘Self-praise is 
no recommendation’ I was always taught. ” 

“That is why I pity clergymen,” continued 
Patricia, “they are always having to give out, and 
their resources can’t be limitless. Indeed some are 
most limited. ” 

“Your views of things make me sick, ” exclaimed 
the elder Miss Vaughan, “and that’s the long and 
the short of it. And I don’t see any need for such 
as you to pity the clergy. They are men of high 
character and good education, and though they 
work hard they are heaping up treasure in Heaven ; 
and, moreover,” she added with a natural drop 
into practical worldliness, “they are professional 
men and take a good social position — in the 
country, at any rate. Father and mother dine 
at the Muirfields’ at least twice a year.” 

Patricia shrugged her shoulders. 

“The clergy always seem to me to be either 
looking through a telescope at heaven or a micro- 


172 


Patricia 


scope at earth, as divided into parishes, and never 
straight out into the open world. Therefore they 
don’t see things as they really are.” 

“You know nothing at all about it,” snapped 
Maggie, who always lost her temper even in the 
vestibule of an argument. 

“Then it doesn’t seem much use my discussing 
the question,” replied her cousin ironically. 

“It isn’t — and that’s a fact.” And Maggie 
banged the door after her, though she reopened 
it to add : 

“Don’t make up the fire. There is the service 
and' a meeting afterwards tonight, so we shan’t 
need the drawing-room again.” 

Patricia sat still in the twilight and watched the 
glowing embers. The rectory drawing-room was 
never warm, except in the immediate vicinity of 
the fire-place, perhaps because the windows did not 
fit and the winds, sweeping across the valley, were 
quick to take advantage of any leakage, but more 
probably because the fire never burned long enough 
really to air the room. 

“Callers are coming — light the drawing-room 
fire!” was a remarkable order which Patricia had 
often heard shouted in Lynfield Rectory. So the 
wood crackled and the callers shivered, and by the 
time the grate was warm the necessity for a fire 
seemed to have abated and so it was rarely made 
up. Patricia hated the drawing-room in con- 
sequence, but she stayed in it that afternoon with 
an unformulated desire to balance things more 


Golly’s Chances 


173 


correctly in her indecision about her future. All 
humanity is filled with that unconscious instinct 
for balance, and many ways and deeds can be 
explained thereby. Patricia was hugging dis- 
comfort and cold and all the jarring elements of 
the rectory life in order to balance her wishes with 
regard to Golly, for his letter that morning had 
definitely told her that things must be settled 
between them before long and how much he was 
hoping and longing and loving. It was a natural, 
ordinary, simple letter, written from a good heart 
with a bad pen ; two words were spelt wrongly, at 
which Patricia smiled, but his paper was stamped 
from a fashionable club, and would by and by be 
stamped with a coronet. There was a rich look 
about it, which appealed to Patricia. Letters have 
a wonderfully characteristic appearance, and we 
all know how, as our eyes sweep the breakfast- 
table, we can judge pretty accurately from the 
envelopes what to expect therein. Golly’s letters 
were never interesting; they were badly written 
and expressed and spelt — but nevertheless they 
were well-bred, well-off letters, and they conveyed 
to Patricia the atmosphere in which Golly’s wife 
would always live. An atmosphere most unlike 
that of the rectory drawing-room, in which she 
sat, and moped, and thought, that afternoon. 

“Is that you, my love, all alone in the dark?’’ 
and Aunt Lucy’s kindly face peeped in at the 
door. 

“Yes, do come in,” begged her niece. “You 


174 


Patricia 


haven’t sat down for one minute the whole of 
today, — you know you haven’t. ” 

Mrs. Vaughan shook her head. 

“I have to run down into the parish before tea. ” 

“Oh, Aunt! you know it isn’t necessary. And 
I do so want to talk to you. Try and imagine I 
am a parishioner for once, and then I know you will 
find time to attend to me. ” 

Aunt Lucy looked dubious. “ I promised to see 
Maria Raynor about her next place. ” 

“And I want to consult you about my next 
place,” urged Patricia, “Maria can wait till to- 
morrow. Do sit down and listen to me.” 

“I will, my love,” and Mrs. Vaughan laid her 
parish hat, as she called it, upon the piano, and 
stretched out her old damp boots to the fire. 
“What is it you want to talk to me about, my 
dear?” 

“Shall I marry Golly Muirfield, or shall I not?” 
said Patricia ; and Aunt Lucy nearly jumped out of 
her chair. It is astonishing how little the former 
generation always knows of the present one’s love 
affairs, even though they live under the same roof. 

“Oh! my love. You take my breath away! It 
seems so sudden!” 

“There is nothing sudden about it, seeing that 
he has been in love with me on and off ever since 
he grew up.” 

“What ever will Lady Muirfield say?” and 
Mrs. Vaughan looked a little frightened. 

“The question is what shall I say ” 


Golly’ s Chances 


175 


A knock at the door interrupted them. The 
rectory servants always knocked at the door, ap- 
parently for fear of interrupting private prayer or 
auricular confessions. 

“ Could you lend Mrs. Mason your steam kettle, 
ma’am, as the doctor has prescribed bronchitis, 
and her breathing’s that bad that Mr. Mason says 
he has just been sayin’ to her that he shouldn’t be 
surprised if it was to carry her off. It almost 
sounds ike the death rattle already, so he says. ” 
“Oh! I am sorry!” and Aunt Lucy’s ready sym- 
pathy flowed out as water from an opened sluice. 
“Take the steam kettle out of the lumber room, 
and say I will be down soon after tea. And tell 
the rector about it, Martha.” 

“I ’ave, ma’am. At least he came out when I 
was talking to Mr. Mason, and he has gone down 
back with him. Mrs. Mason is a bad subject for 
chest complaints, cook thinks. And that’ll make 
three funerals in a month. When the two last 
was over cook and me was on the lookout for the 
third, and wondering who it ’ud be. ” 

“But she isn’t dead yet,” suggested Mrs. 
Vaughan, “so hurry off and find the kettle and 
run down with it yourself, Martha, to save time. ” 
“I was just going to see about getting the room 
tea, ma’am.” 

“Never mind our tea — run off and be as quick 
as you can. And take some of the linseed meal 
with you in case there isn’t any in the house, and a 
bit of new flannel out of my linen drawer. Yes, 


176 


Patricia 


my love,” turning to Patricia, “what were you 
saying?” 

“I was saying that I don’t know what to say.” 

“Has Godolphin Muirfield actually proposed?” 

Patricia laughed. “No one actually proposes 
nowadays, but I shall have to make up my mind. ” 

“But are you sure he wants to marry you?” 

“Quite sure. ” 

“Then, my love, what is there to hesitate 
about?” and Aunt Lucy looked puzzled. 

“I am not sure whether I want to marry him. ” 

Her aunt gave a little scream. 

1 1 Why ever not ! It would be a great match, my 
dear ! so great, I can’t help thinking there must be 
some mistake. It takes my breath away!” 

Another knock at the door and the cook peeped 
in. 

“Please, mum, would you come out and speak 
to old Betty? She’s at the back door. ” 

“What does she want?” 

“She didn’t say, mum, but I fancy it’s a pair of 
boots.” 

“The rector doesn’t like my giving away things 
at the door, ” a little doubtfully. 

“Then why go?” suggested her niece. 

“ I am fond of old Betty, and she has had a hard 
life. Are her boots very bad, cook?” 

“ It’s too dark to see exactly, mum, but she said 
as ’ow one sole had gone altogether.” 

“These boots of mine are on their last legs,” 
said Aunt Lucy looking down. 


Golly’s Chances 


177 


“Apparently not!” ejaculated Patricia. 

— “And I am sure the rector would think poor 
Betty’s a deserving case. I think I’ll just run 
out and speak to her. I shall be back directly, 
love. ” 

A few minutes afterwards she returned in her 
stockinged feet. 

“I couldn’t help it,” she explained apologetically, 
“and I do hope your uncle won’t be angry. But 
she was no better than barefoot. ” 

“Just as you are now. I will fetch you your 
shoes. Are they in your wardrobe?” 

“I think they are under the dining-room side- 
board,” said Aunt Lucy thoughtfully. “I went 
out in such a hurry this morning. Of course your 
uncle knows best and is wisest, but I do think it 
somehow spoils a gift when you stop to find out if 
it is a deserving case or not. We are none of us 
deserving cases in God’s sight, and yet what count- 
less gifts He lavishes upon us. But to return to 
what we were discussing, my love. I do think 
that Providence is being very kind to you, Patricia, 
to throw such a chance as this in your way. ” 

“I don’t think Providence has anything at all 
to do with it, ” replied her niece sceptically. 

“Hush, my love!” reproved the rector’s wife; 
“for I have yet to find the thing with which Provi- 
dence has not anything to do. And as He has to 
manage the first and third columns in the Times , 
surely the middle one is not beyond His almighty 
power.” 


1 2 


i 7 8 


Patricia 


“But what I want your advice about, Aunt, is — 
shall I marry Golly or not?” 

Aunt Lucy beamed. 

“Why, certainly, my love. It would be a most 
wonderful settling for you. I cannot say how 
thankful I am, though I do wonder what Lady 
Muirfield will say. I should not like her to think 
I had anything to do with it if she disapproves, 
which I am afraid she will.” 

“But I don’t love him, you see,” said Patricia, 
when she could get a word in. 

Aunt Lucy’s face clouded. 

“Not love him!” she ejaculated. “Why not?” 

“Is there ever a why or a why not in questions 
of love?” began her niece, but just then there was 
another knock at the door, and Martha’s face 
reappeared. 

“The rector says, ma’am, would you please not 
wait tea for him as he is making Mrs. Mason’s 
will, and she can’t decide whether to leave the 
chiffonier to Albert James or to her niece what’s 
married over Muirfield way, and she can’t be 
hurried ’cause of her breathing and spasms. And 
would you please send him down by me the packet 
of will forms as is on his desk or in the right- 
hand drawer of the table, and his fountain pen 
which he thinks is in his Sunday coat pocket, or else 
somewhere about, if you’ll please find it. And 
little Jennie Cartwright wants to know would you 
mind writ in’ a letter to Australy for her mother to 
her aunt what’s emigrated and may leave ’em 


Golly’s Chances 


179 


money some day and the mail goes this evening” — 
and Martha stopped for breath. 

Patricia sighed as Aunt Lucy rushed off to per- 
form these varied behests. 

“I'll be back in a minute, love, and tell Jennie 
I’ll be down there in time for post, but I must do 
what your uncle wants without delay. I expect 
his fountain pen is in the vestry, the things he 
thinks are in his Sunday coat pocket usually are, ” 
and her voice died away in the distance. 

“What a life!” mused Patricia. “This sort of 
thing morning, noon, and night! I wonder Aunt 
Lucy is alive, or, for the matter of that, any 
country clergyman and his wife, if they all go on 
like this ! I don’t believe aunt has had one hour to 
herself since I came here. And what is the good 
of it all? Spoiling a lot of people who are quite 
capable of looking after themselves, or ought to be ! 
And Uncle George says this parish is a holiday 
after the town one he used to have. I fail to 
* imagine what a clergyman’s life must be like in a 
town — but all the same, he can’t do more than 
give up every minute of his day to the parish as 
uncle does, so unless days are longer in towns I 
don’t see how he can work harder. It is a dog’s 
life.” 

“I was just thinking, ” she said as her aunt came 
back, “that this kind of thing is enough to kill 
you.” 

“What kind of thing, dear?” asked Mrs. 
Vaughan amazed. 


i8o 


Patricia 


“This treadmill business of never sitting still 
or having a moment to yourself. ” 

“Why, my love, you are mistaken! Look what 
a nice quiet hour we are having at this very 
moment, chatting over the fire.” 

“You have been interrupted often enough.” 

“But not called out of the house, as I might have 
been. And only such little things, — hardly worth 
counting as service. But that is just the best of 
it,” and Aunt Lucy’s face glowed, “it doesn’t 
matter how small the service is, it is accepted by 
Him Who has taught us how to serve. It was not 
only to raise the dead and to redeem the world 
that He was ready, but He took a towel and washed 
the disciples’ feet. I so often think of that. It 
was such a homely, everyday sort of thing to do. 
And when my life seems made up of things just 
like 1 taking a towel, ’ with nothing great or spiritual 
about it, such as your uncle’s work is, then I re- 
member what my Master did, and His Touch has 
made all the simple unimportant things great and 
worthy. Oh, my love! if I could only make you 
understand that a life of service does not kill; 
it makes alive! But I do wish that I could do 
more. I am getting on in years and there is so 
little to show for them. However we mustn’t 
be talking about me, when you have so much to 
say,” and Aunt Lucy blew her nose hurried- 
ly, “I can’t think why you don’t love young 
Muirfield, my dear. It seems such a brilliant 
match.” 


Golly’s Chances 


181 


“ It is, I suppose, in one way. But do you think 
it is safe to marry a man you don’t love?” 

“Safe? I don’t quite understand you. It 
might not be right, perhaps, but it would be safe 
enough if the marriage was legal, which of course 
it would be. ” 

“But you might love somebody else afterwards.” 

Aunt Lucy gasped. “Oh, Patricia! such things 
are wicked, and so it is useless, and, besides, not 
quite nice, my love, to speak of them. There seems 
to me only one difficulty you need trouble about, 
because you see good women always love their 
husbands, and if you married Godolphin Muirfield 
of course you would love, honour, and obey him 
quite naturally after that beautiful service. But 
what I am afraid of is that Lady Muirfield may 
not be pleased. ” 

Patricia smiled. “That is a matter, dear Aunt, 
which need not be put on to my scales at all, but, 
if it is, it will go on to the pro side and not the con. ” 

“Lucy, Lucy!” called the rector, “do come at 
once!” 

“Drowning again!” said Patricia to herself, as 
her aunt darted off as an arrow from the bow. 

“Isn’t tea ready?” her uncle was saying in an 
aggrieved voice, when, his life having been ap- 
parently rescued, though from what Patricia did 
not know this time, she strolled into the dining- 
room. 

“I am sorry it is a little late, George, ” replied his 
wife' penitently, “Martha was out.” 


Patricia 


182 

“But you were in, ” said the rector reprovingly, 
“and I have a class tonight. ” 

“I was talking to Patricia, I am afraid, or I 
should have seen to things. I am so sorry. ” 

“Talking to Patricia indeed! Really, Lucy, I 
am surprised at your wasting time in gossip. 
There is something to be done in the world besides 
talking, though I am afraid our niece does not 
always realize this. ” 

“Even Solomon owned there is a time to 
speak,” said Patricia, “as well as to keep silence.” 

“You know your Bible remarkably well for a — 
a — a child of Edward’s,” observed her uncle. 

“My father always appreciated good litera- 
ture,” replied Patricia coldly; and then the fam- 
ily gathered round the table and talked “parish” 
until they scattered for their appointed evening 
duties. 

As Patricia lay awake that night and heard the 
screech of the owls, and the repeated strikes of the 
old church clock, she definitely made up her mind 
to marry Golly. Aunt Lucy was so sure she would 
grow to love him, and Aunt Lucy was probably 
right. Life was always so simple and uncomplicated 
in her aunt’s eyes, and Patricia was growing con- 
scious of a power of truth in Aunt Lucy’s outlook, 
which, though never subtle, was certainly sincere. 

Patricia was tired — tired of physical discomfort 
and tired with mental exertion, for her book 
was not being written, as no real books are, 
without the shedding of blood. But most of all 


Golly’s Chances 


183 


she was tired of indecision. Two great problems 
had recently come her way, and both she had to 
decide on her own responsibility and for her own 
doing, or undoing, as the case might be. The first 
had never been crystallized into a question at all, 
but all the same it claimed a big decision. Patricia 
knew deep down in her soul that it was a dishon- 
ourable thing to include the Wellingborough cor- 
respondence in her book, and above all to publish 
that shameful breach of trust of which the late 
ambassador had been guilty when he told her 
father the thrilling secret of that diplomatic up- 
heaval which had almost wrecked the peace of 
nations, and which would even now make the ears 
of Europe tingle. She knew that the action of 
her publisher in extracting a promise, which she 
was bound in honour to cancel as soon as she under- 
stood its significance, was no real defence for her 
in not having done so. But Patricia loved success, 
and she knew that these indiscretions insured the 
success of her book. She also wanted money 
rather badly wherewith to escape from Lynfield 
Rectory for at least some portion of the year, and 
her book in its present form meant money without 
fail. Moreover, there was in her mind an unformu- 
lated but none the less real inclination to hit at 
the late Lord Wellingborough’s parson son and 
pious cousin by showing the diplomatist up as he 
really was under the very poor, and in her opinion 
false, coat of whitewash with which his deliquen- 
cies had been publicly covered. 


184 


Patricia 


Patricia hated the Church and despised its 
clergy, and to catch one of the latter tripping was 
a satisfaction not to be declined. Of course she 
had read the short life of Lord Wellingborough 
which his son had given to the world — and she 
admired its literary style. But all the same it was 
the sort of memoir which she despised. It told 
the public only just as much as it was good for 
them to know, and by a certain somewhat haughty 
reserve silenced even speculation as to certain ru- 
mours which had been connected, and rightly so, 
with his name. “He is afraid of the truth,” she 
said scornfully, “and were he only an artist such 
fear would be contemptible; but as a parson, who 
is bound to think that any deviation from the truth 
is wrong, he shows his own thin coat of moral 
veneer when the truth might touch him on the raw. 
His book is a colourless engraving of a fancy 
portrait of the man. In but a comer of my book 
I’ll make his father live and move and act till 
people feel he is alive again. But that’s the way 
of parsons — they dish up their doctrines into pap, 
and are afraid of the taste of truth!” 

So Patricia had argued and thought and felt, 
until she almost gloried in the dishonour which she 
called by so many other names — and she had 
worked at her book unashamed. But all the 
same the conflict had tired her, even though she 
would have told you that there had been no 
conflict at all. 

Then had come the problem of her marriage, and 


Golly’s Chances 


185 


she had gone up and down with every swinging 
thought, until a very nausea of movement laid her 
low. At this crisis Aunt Lucy’s loving, worldly 
words had come with a weight of which the speaker 
was wholly unconscious. There is a responsibility 
behind all that we say which we must one day 
reckon with, and the worldliness of unworldly folk 
is specially strong because it stands out as other 
than it is. The unworldliness of worldly people has 
equal power — it arrests and attracts, and finally it 
exercises influence. Patricia knew much of the lat- 
ter quality — her father was full of it, and hers was 
one of the artistic natures which are responsive to 
all incongruities, and impatient of all convention- 
alities. So Aunt Lucy’s words of assurance that all 
would be right if she married Golly were the final 
goads in Patricia’s decision. 

41 I’ll accept him at the Muirfields’ ball, when- 
ever that may be,” she said to herself, “and during 
the next few months I’ll finish my book, and then 
start fresh as an embryo peeress — only to be, and 
never to do, but with much — oh, so much, to 
have!” 

And in the peace of finality at last she fell asleep. 


CHAPTER VIII 

THE VALLEY OF DECISION 

Patricia woke in high spirits. The subcon- 
scious feeling that something nice had happened 
met her on the threshold of sleep, and by the time 
she was ready to do her hair she was actually 
planning the bridesmaids’ dresses. It was so nice 
to feel it was settled, and her mind made up, and 
her future happiness secure, and still nicer to hug 
the secret to herself and play with it in imagina- 
tion before it need be translated into prose reality. 
She looked across to Lynfield Park and the stately 
elms and beeches seemed new friends as well as 
relations; — not always the same thing! She felt 
a glow of affection even for the grey rectory because 
she had made up her mind to go away from it, and 
was genial at breakfast with that heartfelt pleas- 
antness which usually shows itself on the last 
morning of an uncongenial visit. None of the 
jarring elements had power to touch her when once 
she had resolved to leave them behind, and she 
loved the sensation of holding hidden in her heart 
the news which would one day electrify her cous- 
ins and entrance her aunt and — it must also be 
186 


The Valley of Decision 187 

added — throw a very bombshell into Lady Muir- 
field’s peace of mind. 

This sudden influx of happiness inspired her 
with the power of writing again, and as the book 
flew with leaps and bounds towards its completion, 
Patricia rejoiced in it exceedingly. No longer torn 
by doubts or delays she went ahead both as regards 
her work and her sentiments. Her powers of 
imagery brought out of the past the true picture of 
her father and his life and friends; it also brought 
out of the future an imaginary portrait of her 
husband and the life which would be hers as his 
wife, but, of the truth of this, time could be the 
only test. Imaginings are not altogether vain ; they 
can be beautiful and artistic and inspiring as were 
Patricia’s, whether on the pages of her writing or 
in the recesses of her hopes. She had done with 
debatable ground. Her father’s Life was rushing 
on with racing fluency, and because she was happy 
it was much easier to draw the sadness and the 
pathos of his last illness and death with the true 
touch of the outsider. Seeing, not feeling, makes 
the real artist. To be inside an experience, 
whether of love or life or death, robs us of the 
power of portraying it for others: perhaps be- 
cause we know it all too well, and so have lost 
the lines which are essential with which to give 
it to the world in living shape and form — lines 
which we drew quite finely when we had to con- 
vince ourselves apart from our experience: per- 
haps because the real is such a muddle that we 


i88 


Patricia 


cannot out of it find colours clear enough to show 
one tenth of what is there, and so we fail, where 
once we succeeded with the simple blacks and 
whites and blues and reds. To know all is the 
artist’s handicap, to see all is his strength. 

So Patricia’s book grew stronger with the dying 
year. A great piece of work was being accom- 
plished, and of its power Patricia had good reason 
to be proud. Of its principles she had but a weak 
standard, — the standard of a girl’s honour; and a 
girl who was driven about by moods and inclina- 
tions and impulses, all of wild growth, and un- 
govemed by the mighty power which some people 
call civilization and others Christianity — a girl, 
too, who, in common with most of her sex, reckoned 
with personalities rather than principles; and so 
the questionableness of her lack of restraint was 
never submitted in her mind to any test but what 
certain people might say ; and as she was indiffer- 
ent to those particular people’s feelings, indeed 
more than that, even delighting in the thought of 
their displeasure, there was no touch of remorse 
in her exultant triumph at being able to do work 
so effectively, so arrestingly, and so altogether 
well. 

The publishers were delighted with the manu- 
script submitted to them in instalments, as well 
they might be — they saw success in every line, and 
a fortune in the culminating indiscretions. Being 
men, they understood far better than Patricia 
really could the saleable value of such criminal 


The Valley of Decision 


189 

unreserve, and they hurried on her work with all 
possible speed, for fear of some turn of the tide 
which might induce Patricia to modify her work. 
The secrets she had to disclose were national ones, 
and so the book would be of national importance 
and interest. Patricia only thought of what Lord 
Wellingborough’s son might say; her publishers 
knew what England, and wider circles still in 
Europe and America, would say, when the story 
was told which was supposed to lie buried in the 
safe recesses of a diplomat’s grave — safe and secret 
among the hidden history of the world. 

Of the immense significance of this Patricia 
was unconscious; of her own daring indiscretion 
she was proud. 

The first proofs began to pour in even before 
the actual writing was finished, and Patricia, tired 
with the strain of correcting as well as writing, 
went through them mechanically and carelessly, 
and her publishers were content to correct her 
mistakes so long as she left them her material 
untouched. 

The Christmas holidays, which mean the mul- 
tiplication of every atom of parochial effort at 
least by ten, raced by, and Patricia gave the 
season’s glad greetings with orthodox good will. 
She was on the eve of a great literary and 
pecuniary success ; she was on the eve of a bril- 
liant engagement which would satisfy every 
worldly inclination which she possessed, and they 
were not few; surely it was a happy Christmas 


190 


Patricia 


indeed, and the prospects of the coming year 
loomed fair. She even threw herself with enthu- 
siasm into the rectory world, and stepped down 
from the platform of looking-on. She gave her 
aunt and cousins extravagant presents and ordered 
a ball dress for herself from Worth. More money 
was coming so quickly, and it was a real delight to 
Patricia to give. Even Maggie melted a little in 
Patricia’s sunshine, and Agnes lost quite ten 
years in the fashionable evening frock which her 
cousin bought for her. 

The Muirfields mixed much with their neigh- 
bours during the festive season, and between 
Patricia and Golly there dawned that thrilling 
understanding which hovers over the formation 
of an engagement, with all the excitement of the 
ideal combined with the satisfaction of the real. 
There is perhaps to the heart of woman no more 
perfect bit of experience than the interval between 
making up her mind to marry a man and actually 
promising to do so ; and Patricia’s high spirits were 
so infectious that Golly, impatient, as all men are, 
of unnecessary delay, yet stayed his hot words for 
fear of brushing the bloom from this exquisite 
little time which they were enjoying so irresponsi- 
bly together. 

Even Lady Muirfield seemed making up her 
mind to swallow the inevitable, and so peace 
and good-will held sway in Lynfield, set in 
the effective Christmas-card framework of a vil- 
lage Christmastide. Nights’ rest was broken 


The Valley of Decision 


191 

by the chorus of carol singers, who sang right 
lustily in the keen, frosty air. And then the 
church bells took up the clamour, and rang their 
message across the uplands, till a neighbouring 
church in turn passed on the peal. The usual 
discomforts of seasonable weather prevailed, and 
cold fingers and damp feet made the fireside more 
welcome still. Everyone was happy, hearty, and 
hungry, and Patricia joined with her cousins in 
church decorating, pudding distributions, and 
every other parochial work which gave her the 
opportunity of seeking, and finding, Golly’ s help. 
The climax of the festivities was a village con- 
cert of varied programme but unvaried success. 
There was neither rich nor poor, dissenter nor 
churchman, bond nor free, in the universal brother- 
hood of this effort. The chapel choir sang, and 
the lord lieutenant gave a reading. Golly sang 
comic songs, and Miss Varley’s niece did the same, 
only hers were not meant to be comic. The Muir- 
fields and their house-party occupied two front 
rows and gave two shillings apiece for their tickets. 
The school children gave a dialogue in costume 
arranged by Agnes Vaughan; not elaborate, as 
white nightgowns only were necessary, but unfor- 
tunately the chi’dren of the poor sleep more often 
in pink flannelette, and so it was not so easy after 
all. 

“My lamb shall be in it, ” ejaculated one proud 
mother beaming on her youngest-born with joy, 
“even if I have to cut up the nightgown I’ve put 


Patricia 


192 

by for my own laying out. ” And this she did with 
a mother’s innate self-sacrifice, so that Gladys Jane 
might shine as a chorus girl. 

“I do hope it will go off well, ” said Aunt Lucy, 
giving the final touches to the holly decorations, 
which would lurch to one side over the pictures 
and maps which adorned the schoolroom walls. 
A full-length skeleton supported a wreath of mistle- 
toe, which Patricia thought would be more suitably 
placed on an oleograph of Mary Queen of Scots. 

“The children know their parts,” said Agnes 
anxiously, “if only they aren’t too shy to say 
them.” 

“The chapel choir is doing a sacred piece, ” said 
Maggie. “Mrs. Merry weather told me so this 
afternoon.” 

“I have put Lord Muirfield’s reading between 
that and the comic song,” continued the rector’s 
wife, “it seems to make one pass more reverently 
from one to the other, and in these varied enter- 
tainments you have to be careful. ” 

“I should suggest putting Uncle George’s 
speech between the next two,” said Patricia, “in 
case any one needs sobering.” 

“I have,” replied her aunt simply. 

The room was filled long before the doors were 
opened, because a way was forced through an ad- 
joining wash-house, and Mrs. Vaughan, who was 
in command, could not bear to let any one stand 
out in the cold on such a frosty night. Several 
adjoining class-rooms quite out of sight of the 


The Valley of Decision 


i93 


stage, but within earshot, were also crammed. 
The miller settled himself down for a thoroughly 
enjoyable evening. No gala performance at the 
opera could ever offer to our royal family and their 
foreign guests quite the superlative sensations 
which Mr. Weston experienced at a village concert. 
Lady Muirfield was very gracious and looked very 
handsome; she had been wonderfully liberal in 
the number of servants whom she had allowed to 
be present, and one felt that a robbery might eas- 
ily have been effected at Lynfield Park, so inade- 
quately protected must it have been. But no 
one ever thought of such a thing as burglary at 
Lynfield — it was absolutely unknown in the annals 
of the place; and even to close one's front door 
at night was more a precaution against cold than 
any other danger. 

Miss Varley alone of the villagers purchased a 
two- shilling ticket ; she felt she owed it to the dear 
duchess, in whose employment it was once her 
honour to serve. 

Patricia sold programmes at a penny each. She 
looked most startlingly attractive with the lustre 
of happiness and hopefulness lighting up her rare 
and delicate beauty. It suddenly dawned on Uncle 
George for the first time that his niece was good 
to look at, and he was extremely surprised at the 
discovery. 

“Upon my soul, Lucy,” he whispered to his 
wife, “Edward’s girl is not bad-looking when you 
see her at a distance ! I never noticed it before. ” 
13 


194 


Patricia 


“A man can’t expect beauty and money,” also 
whispered Lord Muirfield to his wife, “ and in these 
days of chorus singers and ballet girls the boy 
might do worse. ” 

“Distinguished-looking. I should hardly say 
beautiful,” murmured Lady Muirfield, who had 
once been a beauty herself, and so was specially 
critical in that direction. ‘ ‘ And I do wish, William, 
that you would not even breathe such a thought 
as a chorus girl. People talk so much in these 
days about brain waves and thought transference 
that I am frightened to death of one reaching 
Godolphin. ” 

“Oh! the boy has made up his mind. I can see 
that” — and such things have to be very obvious 
before a father sees it. “If the young lady will 
have him, he’s fixed up. ” 

1 1 Have him ! ’ ’ exclaimed Lady Muirfield. 1 1 What 
absurd things you do say ! She will jump at him, — - 
any girl would ! I must confess it is a bitter pill 
to me, William. I had such great hopes for our 
eldest.” 

“Oh well, young people will go their own way 
nowadays! Very different from what we were in 
our young days;” — a consoling fallacy with which 
each generation deplores the wilfulness of the next. 
“And I admire the girl myself. She has a quick 
wit, too, in that pretty head of hers, and has got a 
bit of breeding about her. The boy might have 
done worse. ” 

“I suppose so,” said his wife dubiously; “but 


The Valley of Decision 


i95 


she is older than he is, and anyway he might have 
done much better, if only he had been guided by 
me. Still, if it is to be,” she murmured resignedly, 
and if it should be, though I very much doubt it , 
the Will of Providence, then it is not for me to 
interfere” — which is obvious in other cases even 
than that of Lady Muirfield. 

The first song was by an immense bass. It dealt 
a good deal with the depths of the sea, and nothing 
was able to bring it up above the water level. 

“I feel as if I were in a submarine, ” whispered 
Patricia to Golly. 

“No, a diving-bell,” he suggested. “Hush, he’s 
going lower still. Now it’s the waters under the 
earth. He’ll never come up again alive. ” But he 
did, and was able to respond to an enthusiastic 
encore in rather a bacchanalian effort of which the 
rector disapproved as it, in his opinion, seemed to 
encourage drinking habits. 

A small child then recited a piece of poetry, of 
which no single word reached even the front row. 
All the other children in the class mouthed it with 
their lips, and the mother’s face was rapt with joy 
as she, too, whispered it anxiously, and then clasped 
the performer in her arms, who flew to her from the 
platform steps in crimson abandonment. A very 
small school teacher was to sing next, and the 
strident power of her contralto voice made one 
wonder wherever she kept it. Patricia jumped 
violently — its volume was so unexpected, — and 
as the impassioned verses followed thick and fast 


196 


Patricia 


it sounded more like the “Hallelujah Chorus” on 
a huge gramophone than any individual effort. 

‘ ‘ Marvellous ! Marvellous ! ’ ’ bleated the miller, 
as the inevitable encore produced a repetition of 
the last five verses. 

Golly’s comic song was, of course, the success of 
the evening. “So mirthful, yet so refined,” mur- 
mured Miss Varley, who had not caught any of the 
innuendoes. And the applause nearly lifted off 
the roof. He obligingly gave two encores, and 
then sat down beside Patricia mopping his brow. 

It hardly seemed a suitable moment for Lord 
Muirfield to give his reading of the “Song of the 
Shirt,” so Uncle George decided to bring in his 
speech to calm the hilarity down, which it most 
effectually did. 

As the rector had said exactly the same thing 
each Christmas for the last thirty-seven years, 
the audience took it lying down, but with a 
respectful appreciation at the end which brought 
the tears into Aunt Lucy’s eyes — the same tears 
in size and number as she had shed on each pre- 
ceding occasion. She so enjoyed the applause 
which was her husband’s due, and when he hoped 
he might be spared to spend with them another 
Christmas, and the hope was vociferously cheered, 
then the good lady felt again a bit of the old thrill 
which she had on that never-to-be-forgotten day 
when her lover kissed her for the first time as she 
sat sewing in the old rocking-chair, which was still 
for this memory’s sake, to her, the most comforta- 


The Valley of Decision 


197 


ble resting-place in the world. And again when the 
Voice breathed o’er Eden on her wedding day that 
thrill had run through her as an electric current 
and she wept with joy — a thing that showed she 
was a bride of nearly half a century ago. From 
time to time in after years the wires touched that 
battery again — and at this yearly gathering when 
the people applauded her husband, and the thought 
just touched her that she might lose him some day, 
oh ! how she loved him again ! She could not help 
but shed the tear or two that overflowed from her 
full heart. And then with a cheerful sniff she 
came to earth again, and reproved Uncle George 
promptly for forgetting to mention how indebted 
they were to Lord Muirfield for a gift of coal for 
the parish, and how pleased they were to welcome 
in their midst the chapel steward. These defi- 
ciencies having been lamely rectified Lord Muir- 
field gave his reading. 

But unfortunately the people thought that it 
was funny. They wanted it to be so, and Thomas 
Hood was surely a comic writer, for someone had 
recited “Miss Kilmans egg and her Golden Leg” 
the year before. So the ‘ * Song of the Shirt ’ ’ caught 
on in the wrong way. Lord Muirfield looked ex- 
tremely surprised at first and then annoyed. 
“Work, work, work!” he read in lugubrious tones, 
and the people shouted with laughter, while “a 
shroud as well as a shirt” brought the house down. 
The rector and his wife much regretted this un- 
toward incident, and apologized profusely to the 


igS 


Patricia 


ruffled peer, but to Golly and Patricia it was an 
experience of pure delight. It was with a sigh of 
relief that the Vaughans watched the chapel choir 
mount upon the platform to give their rendering of 
the immortal Christmas song. The four sopranos 
were spinsters of uncertain age who spent their 
week-days at various business pursuits in neigh- 
bouring towns, and their evenings in nonconform- 
ing energies of a most strenuous character. Their 
voices were whistley, almost railway-whistley 
when they took their top notes — but they were 
mellowed by one or two really musical contraltos, 
and the men’s voices were so strong that it required 
strident trebles to surmount them. 

“Unto us a Child is born,” carolled the elderly 
spinsters. 

“Wonderful! Wonderful!” chorussed the basses 
and tenors, and, to his eternal shame, Golly 
laughed loud and suddenly. His mother fixed 
him with her reproving gaze, and he coughed con- 
tinuously and earnestly to prove that he had not 
laughed at all, but that it had been a cough all 
along. 

When all the items of the programme had been 
encored, a few votes of thanks were proposed and 
seconded by local effort. Mr. Weston gave his 
candid opinion of the native talent displayed on 
this occasion, and it was a most flattering one. 
He also reminded his friends of the untiringly 
efficient manner in which the rector and his wife 
and family did their duty in that state of life to 


199 


The Valley of Decision 

which they had been called, and invoked a special 
blessing upon them, — which Aunt Lucy herself 
applauded vigorously, not from any self-praise, 
but because her admiration for her husband ab- 
solutely drowned any consciousness of the help 
she herself gave him. Several wept during this 
speech including the speaker himself. Uncle 
George ponderously replied. He also thanked 
their kind friends Lord and Lady Muirfield for the 
support they so willingly and generously gave to 
all parish efforts, and, in a burst of depressing 
gratitude, he expressed deep thankfulness that 
death, which had been so busy in neighbouring 
villages, had passed them by, and that they had 
been let alone for another year also, in the hopes 
that they might reform before they were cut down 
and withered. No one connected in any way with 
the church itself had been called away, and for 
that mercy he was deeply thankful, though they 
must not expect it to occur again. Carried away 
by this unprecedented good fortune Uncle George 
inopportunely forgot the demise of an ancient 
district visitor the preceding February, and 
immediately a solemn-faced young man, her 
nephew, arose, and said he was bitterly hurt, as 
indeed were all his family — loud sobs at this point 
were heard from the back of the room, — at the 
rector’s ignoring of his beloved aunt’s decease, who 
had for over seventy years been closely connected 
with church and parish work, and had left a gap 
behind her which, in the opinion of most people in 


200 


Patricia 


Lynfield if not of those of the rectory, would never 
be filled up. 

Golly’s cough was rather bad again. Patricia 
suggested a lozenge. Uncle George was extremely 
flurried by his lapse of memory and endeavoured 
clumsily to explain away the unexplainable, and 
then Aunt Lucy rushed to the rescue and spoke up : 

“Our dear friends must not misunderstand the 
rector. He was speaking of those who had been 
cut down — not of those, who, like dear Mrs. 
Wittington, full of years and honour, have been 
gathered to their rest. And that makes all the 
difference. We have to thank God for those who 
have, like her, departed this life in His faith and 
fear, and for my part I believe that your dear 
aunt’s work for the church and parish will bear 
fruit in Lynfield long after she and all of us 
have been forgotten.” A somewhat extravagant 
eulogy, but demanded by necessity. 

“Bravo, Mrs. Vaughan!” whispered Golly, 
“you played up well.” 

“I did my best,” she said sadly, “but I am 
dreadfully afraid the Wittingtons will turn chapel. 
They are always so touchy. And to make it 
worse Jane Wittington left five pounds to the 
churchyard fund. I do wonder what George was 
thinking of? Not that I blame him, ” she added 
loyally, “it was that dreadful pit accident at Muir- 
field, and the diphtheria at Little Muirfield, that 
put old Jane’s peaceful death out of his head. It 
would out of any one’s, I am sure.” 


The Valley of Decision 


201 


“Of course it would,” Golly agreed, “and that 
young man is a silly ass to make such a fuss. I 
should like to tell him so. ” 

“Oh no ! I beg you won’t ! It might drive them 
from religion altogether, which would be worse even 
than chapel. I hope he’ll get over it by and by. 
I will go and call there tomorrow.” 

And then the National Anthem cheered them all 
up again, and the concert was over. 

When Christmas tide had finally departed, 
breaking up the Muirfields’ house-party, and 
removing Golly back to his regiment, Lady Muir- 
field walked down to the rectory one day to call. 
There was something really feudal in the way that 
Lady Muirfield walked through the village of 
Lynfield. The children bobbed her their best 
curtsies, the little boys took off their caps, and 
one masculine baby promptly removed its plush 
bonnet when it saw its elder brother uncover in 
her august presence. She gave a gracious word to 
those whom she met, and all of whom she knew, 
and with no superficial knowledge either. No 
baby would dream of being born in Lynfield with- 
out the assistance of Lady Muirfield’s parish 
nurse; no wedding could have been celebrated 
without a cake from Lady Muirfield’s still-room; 
no death would have been complete uncrowned by 
a wreath from the Park greenhouses. She was 
the figure-head of the Mothers’ Union, the corner- 
stone of the G. F. S. Her needlework guild swept 
up garments out of every local work basket, and 


202 


Patricia 


her knitted capes and cuffs shielded many wrists 
and shoulders from the winter’s cold. Lady 
Muirfield was a great lady indeed; — great in 
every department of life in which she had a stand- 
ing, and equally so whether she were called upon 
to preside at a mothers’ meeting or to attend a 
Court. She had great influence with the many by 
reason of her rank combined with her worth; she 
had no influence with the few, of whom Patricia 
was one, on account of her intellectual and re- 
ligious standards. But to influence as many for 
good as did her ladyship, even within her limita- 
tions, is a noble fulfilment of the ideal of such a 
life’s work. For when a great lady is also great 
in goodness she is a distinct factor in the righteous- 
ness of a nation which has not yet wholly out- 
grown its inherited love of a lord ! 

Lady Muirfield had been facing things, and 
facing them in the right way. She had taken her 
disappointment boldly by the hand, since she felt 
that fighting it was no longer in practical politics ; 
and she had carefully covered up her own chagrin 
so that it should not lead her into the great and 
common error, which many mothers make, of 
losing their sons in the acquisition of a daughter- 
in-law; — a poor exchange indeed, seeing that at 
best a daughter-in-law is but a doubtful gain, 
while the loss of an eldest -born son is so great as 
to cut through the hardened obstinacy even of a 
Pharaoh, and break fhe heart of many a weeping 
Rachel. Yet mothers are apt thus to bereave 


The Valley of Decision 


203 


themselves. They try to drive their sons from 
what they consider to be an unsuitable choice, and 
they do not see that they are driving those same 
sons away from themselves. A woman can never 
drive a man, after he is once out of his perambu- 
lator, and his mother’s attempts in this are almost 
as futile as by and by his wife’s will be. But 
Lady Muirfield made no such mistake. No one saw 
the tears she shed in secret, and when she wished 
her boy good-bye she was wise enough to add: 

“I am going down to the rectory this afternoon, 
Godolphin. I should like to see more of Patricia 
Vaughan.” 

Golly beamed on his mother, and gave her a 
heartier kiss than he had done since he clung to 
her on going-back-to-school days of long years 
ago. That kiss had cost her dear, but on the whole 
she decided it was worth it. Young people are so 
apt to take for granted their love for their mothers, 
and never trouble themselves about any demon- 
strations thereof; consequently many a mother’s 
heart goes hungry. 

“I am glad to see you today, Mrs. Vaughan,” 
began Lady Muirfield, with her usual gracious 
manner, which won for her so many loyal friends, 
of whom the rector’s wife was chief, “for I want 
a little quiet talk with you. ” 

“Is it about the parish nurse or the Mothers’ 
Union?” asked Aunt Lucy unsuspectingly. 

“It is about neither. I want to talk to you a 
little about your niece.” 


204 


Patricia 


Mrs. Vaughan flushed up beyond her braided 
locks along the avenue of her parting, away as far 
as there was any accommodation for a blush. 

“Patricia!” she gasped, and Lady Muirfield 
nodded. 

“Have you any reason to suppose there is an 
understanding between my son Godolphin and 
your niece? He seems greatly attracted to her. ” 

“There is something, no doubt, dear Lady 
Muirfield, but I am sure it has not come yet to an 
understanding,” and Aunt Lucy’s voice uncon- 
sciously pleaded for forgiveness for an offence of 
which she had by no means been guilty. 

“What makes you so sure?” 

“From what Patricia herself said. She was 
having a little confidential chat with me some 
weeks ago, and I understood from her that nothing 
definite had been said or, in any way, settled in 
their minds.” 

A gleam of hope shot through Lady Muirfield’s 
heart. Would it be possible even now to send 
Golly to Egypt or India or anywhere to divert his 
thoughts? But his mother remembered the set 
of her son’s chin, and her hopes died even as they 
were born. 

“Yet from what I could judge it looked to me 
as if Godolphin had made up his mind,” she said 
slowly. 

“But I don’t think Patricia has,” said Aunt 
Lucy guilelessly. Lady Muirfield started as if 
shot. 


The Valley of Decision 


205 


“I do not quite understand you, Mrs. Vaughan,” 
she said coldly, and poor Aunt Lucy tried to wipe 
the hotness from her brow, but in vain ! 

“It did not seem to have come to a crisis, I 
mean,” she said lamely. “Of course dear Pa- 
tricia was deeply conscious of the amazing com- 
pliment which the affection of your son would 
confer upon her — at least, she must have been,” 
she added with a clutch at truth. 

“She would doubtless be overcome at first,” 
continued her ladyship more graciously, “and dif- 
fident of her own capacities for such a position. ” 

Aunt Lucy gave a little sigh. She was thank- 
ful the last observation was not in the form of a 
question. 

“But what I wanted to say, Mrs. Vaughan, was, 
that if my son really feels that his happiness is 
involved in this affair, I shall not oppose it or 
prevent it. ” 

“That is very good of you, dear Lady Muirfield. 
I am sure I feel deeply grateful for the beautiful 
way in which you have taken this — this — this up- 
set, for such indeed I have felt it to be; though 
of course I know it is a wonderful piece of good 
fortune for Patricia.” 

“It is indeed,” murmured Lady Muirfield. 

“And I have not encouraged it in any way my- 
self, ” pleaded Aunt Lucy. “Indeed I have felt 
from the first that it would not be according to 
your wishes. ” 

“It is not,” said Lady Muirfield, somewhat ap- 


206 


Patricia 


peased by Aunt Lucy’s intense meekness, “but 
in these days young people will choose for them- 
selves. And of course your niece is a very good- 
looking girl.” The unresisting humility of Mrs. 
Vaughan was leading Lady Muirfield to reckon 
with Patricia’s good points. “And she is also very 
clever, and, in Lord Muirfield’s opinion, attractive.” 

“She is cleverer than I understand,” owned 
the rector’s wife, “but she has a good heart and 
a most excellent temper.” 

“On the sharp side, I should have thought.” 

“ She has never been sharp with me, ” said Aunt 
Lucy, whose gentleness would have blunted a 
razor, “but she has a very ready tongue. Her 
father had — so different from his half-brother — 
my dear husband.” 

“I dislike a ready tongue extremely!” and 
immediately Aunt Lucy was plunged in distress 
for fear she had done Patricia an injury. 

“ But not too ready, ” she hastened to add, “just 
quick and bright, and to the point. She inherits 
that from her Irish mother I suppose, who was a 
daughter of Lord Mullingar, you know. ” 

Lady Muirfield pricked up her ears. Things 
were looking better. She had never even thought 
of Patricia’s grandparents, and it was most satis- 
factory suddenly to stumble upon the fact that one 
of them had been a peer. 

“Indeed,” she said genially, “I did not know 
she was related to the Fitzpatricks, which is the 
family name of the Mullingars, is it not?” 


The Valley of Decision 207 

“I believe it is,” responded the rector’s wife 
happily, “for her brother is called Fitzpatrick. 
But I never knew the mother myself. She died so 
young, and as she was an only child the peerage 
died out, too. ” 

“That was a pity,” said Lady Muirfield severely, 
as if it were pure carelessness on Patricia’s part 
that such a mistake had arisen in the previous 
generation. “Nothing can equal the importance 
of an heir. ” 

“It is fortunate there was nothing for an heir 
to inherit,” said Aunt Lucy, kindly exculpating 
the former Lady Mullingar from any important 
omission. 

“There was the name, Mrs. Vaughan; that is 
surely more important than any material posses- 
sions. ” And Aunt Lucy felt snubbed again. 

“It is better, of course, to have sons in some 
families. You are to be congratulated, dear Lady 
Muirfield, on your three splendid boys, though 
they are hardly boys now. ” 

“It is much better for there to be two or three 
than just an only one, ” and her ladyship spoke as 
if her own forethought was wholly responsible for 
this excellent arrangement. 

“In case of accidents,” suggested the rector’s 
wife, as if it were quite on the cards that the heir 
to a peerage might be lost in the wash. 

“But to return to Patricia,” and Aunt Lucy’s 
heart began to beat again. “I am afraid, dear 
Mrs. Vaughan, that she is not very much interested 


208 


Patricia 


in good works. And I consider that a most impor- 
tant duty for one in the position she would then 
occupy as my son’s wife.” It had never struck 
Lady Muirfield as possible that Patricia’s views 
were not orthodox, or that her attitude of aloofness, 
where religious matters were concerned, was other 
than a carelessness wrought by the inconsequence 
of youth or by the inadequacy of her training. 
And Aunt Lucy devoutly hoped that this sad 
defection would escape Lady Muirfield’s notice. 
She was very anxious for her niece to make this 
good match — especially now that Lady Muirfield 
seemed to be taking it so nicely, and not blaming 
the rector and herself for what at the bottom of her 
heart she felt, and always would feel, was an act 
of amazing presumption. Though it is a truth 
that a prophet is not without honour save in his 
own country, it is equally true that a peer finds his 
honour nowhere else so great. In the wider world 
outside he finds his level and his equals, and his 
rank is reckoned at its retail value — worth some- 
thing, but not everything, in the treasure house of 
life. But in his own county, among the folk who 
have watched him and his family with eyes of 
admiration and awe from generation to generation, 
there is always an exaggerated sense of the great- 
ness of his position, which hails from feudal days, 
and which, in local eyes, it would be real sacrilege 
to ignore. 

The Muirfields, in the eyes of Lynfield rectory, 
were of an importance which no other family in the 


The Valley of Decision 


209 


United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland 
could ever rival, and the wealth which upheld their 
position was a most substantial foundation on 
which their reputation rested. Patricia, who was 
brilliant and beautiful, in whose veins from her 
mother ran blood far bluer than any which invigor- 
ated the original owners of the Muirfield coal-fields, 
but who was poor and dwelling among some of her 
own people, could not in the Vaughans’ eyes be 
allied to the heir of the Muirfield peerage without 
the sense of a great condescension on his side, and 
a dazzling presumption on hers. It was far from 
her own country that Patricia had found the 
honour which was her due; it was in his own 
county that Golly had inherited that honour 
which was so much more than his. 

It is the people who have money who know 
exactly how much, and how little, it is worth. 
The people who have not, never gauge it rightly. 
They do not realize that though it can buy much 
that tends to happiness, it cannot purchase hap- 
piness itself, as it can buy comfort, and luxury, and 
enjoyment, and countless other good things, 
though not the best. The best are beyond buying 
— they are, even in this money-loving age of ours, 
as they always have been, without money and 
without price. Aunt Lucy’s life was barren of all 
that beautifies from without, but it was full of 
that which is inherently beautiful within; and 
therefore she argued how much happier still her 
niece might be with all the accessories of wealth in 


14 


210 


Patricia 


addition to the love that lies in the heart of home 
life ; she never imagined that they might be instead 
of it. 

“Patricia is still young,” pleaded her aunt, 
“and we all grow better as we grow older.” An- 
other sweet fallacy which the rector’s wife never 
dreamed of doubting. “But her heart is in the 
right place, I know, for I have found it there.” 

“Of course I should be ready to help Patricia, ” 
continued Lady Muirfield magnanimously, be- 
jewelling her martyr’s crown, “and to teach her, as 
far as I can.” The tone of her ladyship’s words 
was modest, the temper of them hardly so. Mrs. 
Vaughan was becoming more and more anxious 
as she began to realize the difficulties ahead, even 
with Lady Muirfield’ s sanction. 

“I do not understand Patricia myself,” she 
said helplessly, “but I love her.” 

“So, apparently, does Godolphin, though that 
I also fail to understand. However, we must make 
the best of things ; it is a Christian duty to do so, 
and I shall hope to see more of Patricia ” 

The door opened and the object of their con- 
versation came in. 

“Are you taking my name in vain?” asked the 
girl, smiling at the ruffled surface of things in the 
rectory drawing-room. She saw Aunt Lucy’s 
heated countenance, and Lady Muirfield’s judicial 
attitude, and she understood all its significance. 
It amused her immensely, and she looked forward 
to the next quarter of an hour as much as her 


The Valley of Decision 


21 1 


aunt dreaded it. But deliverance was at hand 
for the latter. “ Lucy, Lucy ! ” called the rector in 
his drowning voice, submerged as usual in dire 
need; and, with a thankful apology, his wife flew 
to his rescue. 

“We were speaking of you,” said Lady Muir- 
field, settling down to her duty of a word with 
Patricia. 

“ So I heard as I came in, ” and the girl sat down 
on a low stool by the fire and looked up with a 
guileless interest in her weirdly-beautiful face. 
It was more difficult to get to the point with 
Patricia than with her aunt. 

“ I believe, ” continued her ladyship with a con- 
scious effort, “that my son is greatly attached to 
you. ” 

“Has he told you so?” 

“Well, no! He has not mentioned the matter 
to me.” 

“Then why do you believe it ? ” 

“From — from what I have heard — and seen.” 

“Don’t you think, Lady Muirfield, it is rather 
a mistake to believe things from just hearsay? 
Gossip is hardly ever quite reliable. ” 

Her ladyship drew herself up. She had a most 
uncomfortable feeling that she was being pushed 
out of the judgment seat, and placed in the dock. 
And the gross unsuitability of the latter position 
for her amounted to a scandal. 

“I never gossip,” she said, and firmly believed 
that herein she was speaking the truth. “But,” 


212 


Patricia 


rather sharply, “of course I can’t help knowing 
things.” 

“By intuition then, I suppose?” and Patricia’s 
tone was dangerously gentle. “I never dare trust 
to mine in such deep and subtle things as love or 
religion. ” 

“I was not alluding to religion. It would be 
most unsafe to build up our faith on intuition 
instead of on revelation and doctrine.” 

“Quite so,” agreed Patricia with barbed pleasant- 
ness, “for intuition is hardly inspired — certainly 
not verbally inspired. And verbal inspiration is 
such a help, I imagine, to thousands! It makes 
everything so clear, and settled, and railway- 
guidish. Uncle George has been expounding 
Genesis to us of late at family prayers, and 
he brings it all before one so clearly — exactly 
how Noah spent his eightieth birthday, and 
all those little domestic touches which are so 
illuminating.” 

“I do not wish to discuss Genesis,” said Lady 
Muirfield with exasperation. 

“I am so sorry. Then might I ask what is it 
you wish to discuss?” 

“ My son’s feelings for you — and what is to come 
of it all.” 

“Don’t you think it would be better to go 
straight to the fountain-head and ask him himself 
about his own feelings? You would be more likely 
to arrive at the truth, I think, for he certainly is 
the best authority on that subject.” 


The Valley of Decision 


213 


“You know as well as I do, Patricia, that Godol- 
phin wishes to marry you.” 

“It may be so. But, dear Lady Muirfield, I 
have always found it such a safe rule never to 
think the worst — or, of course, the best — until the 
man himself has told me so. It prevents any 
misunderstandings or disappointments in love, 
which I have always heard are so very bad for the 
nervous system.” 

“Then you are not already secretly engaged to 
Godolphin?” asked his mother eagerly. 

“ If I were, I should feel in honour bound to pre- 
serve the secrecy.” 

“Do you mean you would tell me a lie? ” 

“Fortunately we need not consider so horrible 
an alternative, for, to be quite frank with you, I 
am not.” 

“Then you are next door to it. ” 

“Being next door does not always involve an 
accurate knowledge of peopled actions. I re- 
member once in London surmising that the lady 
next door was running away with a married 
man, and we discovered afterwards that she was 
really hastening to Eton with a specialist, as her 
boy had suddenly been taken ill there. Next 
door premises are not always safe ones to go 
upon. ” 

“I saw it in his face,” persisted his mother, at 
the last gasp of irritation. 

“And can you see anything in mine?” asked 
Patricia. What Lady Muirfield did see was half- 


Patricia 


214 

veiled insolence, but she was far too well-bred a 
woman to say so. 

“It is no use beating about the bush like this 
with me. I wish you would make a confidante of 
me, for then I might help you, which I am quite 
ready to do. ” 

“When I have anything to confide I shall be 
much honoured by your attention; and should I 
ever in the future be in need of help, I shall re- 
member your generous willingness to bestow it; 
but at present, ” and Patricia got up and stood with 
one elbow on the chimney-piece, “I am not in the 
position to trespass on the kindness which you 
have expressed. ” 

Lady Muirfield also rose. 

“It is rather warm where we were sitting, ” con- 
tinued Patricia suavely, “let me move your chair 
out of the line of fire. ” 

“No, I must be going, thank you. ” 

“Give my love to Freda, please. And tell her 
how we are all looking forward to her ball. ” 

“It is fixed for the week after Easter. Gerald 
will be back by then, and — and — Godolphin is 
coming down again for it. ” 

“So he told me. Is your car here, or did you 
walk? I will go and find Aunt Lucy, unless she 
has been called out.” 

“No, don’t trouble. I am walking.” And as 
she pursued her homeward way Lady Muirfield 
felt none of the comfort of well-doing, nor the 
exalte ness of martyrdom, nor the peace of resigna- 


The Valley of Decision 


215 


tion. She was thoroughly put out, and annoyed, 
and upset, and underneath her graciousness and 
good breeding she had a very healthy and human 
desire to smack Patricia according to her deserts — 
and the duty would have proved an onerous one. 


CHAPTER IX 


THE DRAWING-ROOM MEETING 

Lady Muirfield arranged an immense drawing- 
room meeting which was to eclipse anything of 
that kind ever known in the county of Leicester. 
In the town of Muirfield the parish church had 
been gradually showing signs of senile decay, until 
a crisis had arrived in its decomposition which 
necessitated a large outlay of money to save it from 
ruin, and to render it available as the centre of reli- 
gious life in that rapidly-increasing colliery town. 
Subscriptions, headed by Lord and Lady Muir- 
field’s princely generosity, had poured in enthusi- 
astically for a time, but then there had come a 
lull, and the tide of interest turned, and still the 
church required over a thousand pounds for its 
completion. To meet this demand Lady Muirfield 
decided to attract her neighbours to a drawing- 
room meeting of exceptional worth, and so to let 
the needs of Muirfield church be reinstated in local 
enthusiasm. 

“I have secured two excellent speakers,” she 
told the rector, as her big panting motor was drawn 
up beside him and Patricia in the village street, 
216 


The Drawing-Room Meeting 217 


and her beaming face appeared up out of the 
feather-bed on wheels which was her idea of 
locomotive comfort. 

“I am delighted to hear it, ” replied Mr. 
Vaughan. 

“ Who are they ? ” asked his niece, who never had 
learned, as her uncle had, to await LadyMuirfield’s 
pleasure. 

“Dear Canon Crosbie for one. You know his 
reputation as a revivalistic preacher,” and Uncle 
George nodded. “Wonderful! Marvellous! He 
can get hundreds of pounds for any collection he 
likes. A truly good man and earnest, besides 
being so eloquent and convincing.” 

“And the other?” repeated Patricia. 

The satisfaction clouded a little on the good 
lady’s face. 

“The other speaker is my cousin Lord Welling- 
borough. He is a clergyman and a great power 
in the pulpit, I hear. At least they say he has one 
of the most crowded congregations in London, but 
I have never heard him myself. I am afraid he is 
a little peculiar in some ways, from what I hear 
about him.” 

“That will be all the better for the drawing-room 
meeting,” said Patricia with her lips, but her 
pulses were racing at the shock and interest of 
Lady Muirfield’s announcement. Somehow she 
had never thought of meeting her unconscious 
enemy at the Muirfields’ ; for, though he was a 
relation, they so rarely entertained the non-local 


218 


Patricia 


clergy that Patricia had not imagined that he would 
ever come that way. They had hosts of cousins; 
but, of the men, only the good shots or those who 
conformed to the type of Golly’s friends, were 
ever bidden to Lynfield Park. 

“That depends on the peculiarity, ” ejaculated 
Uncle George. 

“ Indeed it does, Mr. Vaughan ! I wish I really 
knew more about him — but every one says he is so 
clever and interesting — and I thought in some ways 
he would be a draw. ” 

Deep down in her heart of hearts Lady Muir- 
field thought it rather extraordinary for this 
cousin of hers to be a clergyman at all. It would 
have seemed to her much more natural and con- 
ventional, and therefore, in her mind desirable, for 
him to have followed his father in diplomacy, 
and then fulfilled the ordinary functions of an 
ordinary peer. It was queer that he should 
instead take Holy Orders. It was all rather con- 
fusing to Lady Muirfield, and such a sign of the 
times, as she was very fond of saying. That most 
things which happen are a sign of the times did not 
seem to occur to her, — what she meant was that 
they were a sign of the degeneracy of the times. 
And this was what she was thinking when she still 
further explained : 

“It seems a little strange for my uncle’s eldest 
son to be a clergyman. Really, things travel so 
fast nowadays. I wonder he did not go into diplo- 
macy, or even into political life. My husband 


The Drawing-Room Meeting 219 

says with his opinions, though I regret to say he 
is not attached to our political party — nor indeed 
to any, I hear, but I have my own opinions, — and 
with his inherited ability — for my uncle Lord 
Wellingborough was a wonderfully able man and a 
brilliant speaker — Jim might have had a great 
career. It does seem strange/’ 

“Out of the common. Decidedly out of the 
common,” breathed Uncle George; and the 
chauffeur turned off the engines. 

“Still, out-of-the-commonness seems to me the 
very best thing you could have for your meeting, ” 
and Patricia smiled a little. 

“Of course I did not ask him because he is out 
of the common,” added Lady Muirfield rounding 
her unconscious lie to perfection, “but because he 
is my cousin and, I understand, a good Christian. ” 

“Quite so, quite so,” agreed Uncle George, 
serenely unconscious, too, of any lapse from truth. 

“What a considerable number of speakers 
Lady Muirfield might have asked,” thought 
Patricia, “if that was really her only qualification. 
Oh! how these dear, good people do take them- 
selves in! A real bond fide take in,” and she be- 
gan switching off nettle tops with her walking 
stick. 

“I trust we may be blessed with fine weather,” 
said her uncle solemnly. “Otherwise it might 
keep away those from a distance.” 

“Oh! I think we shall have plenty of people,” 
replied her ladyship, with the cheerful assurance 


220 


Patricia 


that such ladies are justified in feeling concerning 
the reception of their invitations. 

“You will open the meeting with prayer, of 
course, ” continued Lady Muirfield, “and then 
Canon Crosbie will speak. His will be the speech, 
you know. I don’t want too much time left for 
Jim Wellingborough.” 

“In case of the peculiarity, ” suggested Patricia. 

Lady Muirfield drew herself up a little. There 
was an armed neutrality between her and Patricia 
since her last call at the rectory. She felt she 
could never forgive the girl for her indifference and 
impertinence when she, Lady Muirfield, had been 
kind enough to evince so much interest concerning 
her. But that was not really the reason why she 
could not forgive Patricia; the real reason was 
that she knew Golly loved her, and meant to 
marry her. There is no expiation for that crime 
in many a mother’s eyes. 

“Home now,” she commanded the chauffeur, 
and with a bow to Uncle George she was swirled 
away in a cloud of dust. 

The day of the drawing-room meeting was 
blessed with fine weather after all, and everything 
was arranged excellently. It was a Wednesday, 
of course, the only non-hunting day of that dis- 
trict, otherwise neither Lady Muirfield, nor the 
Church of England, nor the House of Lords, could 
possibly have attracted any people of importance. 
But, as it was, motors rolled up, filled with furs 
enveloping gracious ladies and resigned husbands ; 


The Drawing-Room Meeting 221 

and quaint one-horsed omnibuses, which would bye 
and by blossom into the wagonettes of summer, 
driven by moustached coachmen, whose duties 
were divided between the grooming of the horse 
and the tending of the garden, — and this led one to 
believe how fruitful the gardens must be, — brought 
up relays of country clergy, and their well-worn 
wives. Smart little traps with wicked-looking 
ponies, and a few solid, stately carriages and pairs 
trailed up the park, and nearly knocked down the 
thin stream of pedestrians who had forgotten the 
necessity of getting out of the way unless screamed 
at by a horn or hooter. 

Lady Muirfield was in her element; she loved a 
religious function wedded to a social gathering, 
and she possessed the spirit of hospitality which 
rejoices in crowded rooms and heavily-laden tea 
tables. The three drawing-rooms, leading out of 
one another, were packed with chairs in rows, and 
hymn sheets lay like a fall of snow upon the seats. 
Large fires gave a glowing appearance to the rooms 
and cheerfully baked those who sat within their 
precincts — while, on the other hand, open windows 
provided air for the healthy, draughts for the faint, 
and freshened the flower-laden atmosphere with a 
tincture of winter. The Vaughans, by right of its 
being in their own parish, arrived early; and Pa- 
tricia enjoyed sitting in a corner and watching the 
audience stream in, but she was wondering all 
the time with intense interest what Lord Welling- 
borough would be like, and whether she should 


222 


Patricia 


get to know him. There was the excitement of a 
real danger in any such meeting, and yet it was a 
danger that was not imminent, for she was pledged 
not to speak of her book until it should be pub- 
lished. Altogether it was a situation which 
appealed immensely to Patricia. She hoped 
Lord Wellingborough would be meek and conven- 
tional and sensitive and stupid, and yet somehow 
at the back of her hopes she pictured the pleasant 
possibility that he might not be so, and then the 
danger and delight might be greater still. Any- 
way that day would only be the preface — and the 
preface to what, she had not even in her imagina- 
tion clearly defined. 

Lady Muirfield’s manner was perfection as she 
welcomed each guest, giving to them the flattering 
impression that the success of the meeting de- 
pended on their individual presence for which their 
hostess would be eternally grateful. 

Canon Crosbie, a small eager-looking man was 
talking to a tall friend in a tweed suit near the 
door. Patricia thought the latter might be Lord 
Wellingborough and asked her aunt in a whisper 
if she knew. 

“Oh no, my love! I hardly think so. That 
young man is not a clergyman. He has on a 
flannel collar and a black tie, and a grey suit. ” 

“But Lord Wellingborough is peculiar, Lady 
Muirfield said. And he is not really young, aunt. 
His hair is quite grey round his forehead. ” 

Many people with grey hair were young to Mrs. 


The Drawing-Room Meeting 223 

Vaughan — but then one’s ideas of youth change 
with changing years. 

“I like that man’s face,” continued Patricia, 
hoping now that it might be he, “his eyes are so 
deep.” 

Jim Wellingborough, for it was he, was just 
remarking to Canon Crosbie that a drawing-room 
meeting at a fashionable house was the most 
difficult audience in the whole world to impress. 

“Not at all, not at all,” argued the enthusi- 
astic missioner. “I consider it a most promising 
audience, Educated, well-intentioned, Christian 
people, all gathered together at the bidding of a 
good and gracious lady such as our hostess is — 
what could provide more fruitful soil for the seed, 
and a happier combination to address?” 

“I said to impress.” 

Canon Crosbie smiled. He was accustomed to 
regard the two as synonymous terms. But then 
he was an old hand at this kind of thing, and young 
Wellingborough had been in Orders only about a 
dozen years, and most of those had been spent in 
a slum. 

“Have no fear of your audience here, my dear 
fellow. Now if it had been one composed of 
undergraduates or professors at either University, 
I can understand your sense of difficulty. I have 
even been conscious of that myself. ” 

“I am not in the least afraid of an audience 
which knows how to know, and you would find 
that at Oxford or Cambridge.” 


224 


Patricia 


“ What’s that? what’s that?” and Canon 
Crosbie looked up with the cocked ear of a listen- 
ing terrier. 

“I mean that if people know one language it is 
quite possible to lecture to them on the literature 
of another. But if they can’t read or write it is 
difficult to touch their literary consciousness at all.” 

“But these are all church people. Read and 
write indeed! What are you thinking of?” 

Jim Wellingborough laughed. 

“My cousin is beckoning to us,” he said, “and 
the audience is settling like a broody hen.” 

“How much is needed for the restoration now?” 
asked the Canon as they walked down the rooms 
towards the platform, which was a perfect planta- 
tion of the choicest flowers and bounded by a grand 
piano. 

“Another thousand, I believe.” 

“And I shall get it,” replied Canon Crosbie 
confidently, “a mere nothing to an audience like 
this. Only ten people need give a hundred pounds 
— only twenty need give fifty.” 

“But these are rich people,” murmured the 
younger clergyman. “If we were at a Wesleyan 
Mission, or at Westminster Chapel, it would be 
easy enough!” 

“It is not on the people but on the pleader that 
the real onus lies,” observed the Canon climbing 
up the steps, and with a smile that indicated when 
such a pleader as himself was concerned, the people 
had no voice in the matter at all. 


The Drawing-Room Meeting 225 

The chair was taken by Uncle George. He was 
very much over-heated on account of the proximity 
of the fire, but he was wonderfully and happily 
unconscious of his halting remarks in explaining 
the situation. As everyone knew it beforehand, 
and in addition to that knowledge it was printed 
on the invitation cards, any want of lucidity on 
the part of the chairman was of no moment 
whatever. 

“ It is a perfect mystery to me why Uncle George 
doesn’t mind speaking so badly, and why Aunt 
Lucy doesn’t see how bad it is,” thought Patricia, 
as she looked from the bland face on the platform 
to the beaming one beside her. Then there was a 
hymn. A very sweet, sentimental hymn with a 
tune that an evening congregation would sway to. 
An afternoon audience, of course, did nothing of 
the kind, and the volume of voices was thin. But 
then so many of the ladies could not find their eye- 
glasses, and so many of the men were a little shy 
of hymn singing by daylight. But the local clergy 
rose to the occasion and the tune was sung in tune 
by those who had grown up, and old, through 
countless choir practices. Aunt Lucy knew most 
of the words and hummed the others, — but 
Patricia stood with closed lips watching the tall 
earnest-looking man on the platform, whose looks 
attracted her so strongly and so strangely, with 
that kind of psychic recognition which we feel 
when we first see some one with whom we are 
going to be friends. 


15 


226 


Patricia 


Then Canon Crosbie spoke. His speech re- 
minded Patricia of a cinematograph show, so quick 
were his points, so multifarious and varied his 
pictures, flashing one after the other, in vivid 
realism, and with no relevance to the matter in 
hand. Everybody listened, — his voice was so 
eloquent that even the most commonplace sen- 
tences sounded like rhetoric, and the simplest 
anecdotes were swathed in oratorical drapery. 
The good man’s face twitched with emotion as he 
skimmed over a consumptive mother and skirted 
her dying child. But the next picture flashed into 
focus while the more emotional members of the 
audience were trying to dry their tears through 
their veils, and the more cynical ones were look- 
ing stonily at their boots. There was no pause 
for breath while the little eager man pelted his 
audience with eloquence, and choked them with 
anecdotes, and shook them with thrills. Then for 
a brief and effective moment he stopped. Gazing 
up beyond the elaborate gilt cornice he apparently 
was struck by a vision ; his voice changed, and the 
appeal began. Here there was no need for stories, 
however emotional; there was a direct message, 
judging from appearances written above the 
cornice, and dating from another World. Heaven 
had decreed that the restoration of Muirfield 
Church must be no longer delayed. The sum of 
money required for that purpose must be extracted 
from the pockets assembled in the Muirfields’ 
drawing-room, and by some supernatural means. 


The Drawing-Room Meeting 227 

Should that heavenly mandate be disregarded, the 
pillars of the Church, as represented by Canon 
Crosbie, one of her dignitaries, would be themselves 
endangered by so reckless a defiance. It was 
amazing that such tones of denunciatory wrath 
could emanate from such a bright and cheerful 
personage as the worthy Canon. But he spoke 
with the accurate knowledge of being behind the 
scenes, so to speak, in heavenly matters; and 
some of the ladies’ faces looked strained and scared 
as they listened to such portentous words. The 
men’s faces were dogged with that look that all men 
wear when anyone tries to drive them against their 
will. But again a change of tone suddenly 
snapped the tension of the situation. A possible 
erasure took place above the cornice ; any way the 
Canon seemed to have received some extra in- 
formation, and the injunction to lead rather than 
to drive. 

It was then that he reached his topmost note; 
the gentle persuasiveness of his voice would have 
melted an iceberg, — only he wasn’t dealing with 
icebergs at all, only with very ordinary men and 
women who are utterly unlike icebergs even in their 
hardest and coldest moments. He tenderly ex- 
pressed an assurance that, should the building be 
completed within reasonable time, all would be 
forgiven and forgotten, so to speak, on the part of 
Heaven towards those who had already subscribed 
handsomely, though evidently inadequately, to the 
scheme of restoration. He almost produced the 


228 


Patricia 


very rewards with which such generosity would 
be outweighed, so graphic was his description, 
so sweet his voice in recommending them. And 
then, with one last bound into the irrelevant, he 
told a beautiful little story about a dying cripple 
whom he had himself known, and therefore it was 
quite true. 

Patricia had been looking down for some time 
and her cheeks burned very hot. She wished she 
had chosen one of the seats near the open window. 
It was so stuffy where she was. And her mind 
felt like one’s mouth does when it is very full of 
Turkish delight — a faint flavour, but a great deal 
of stickiness and gelatinous matter. 

“Beautiful!” murmured Aunt Lucy under her 
breath. “Wonderful! What a speaker ! Inspired, 
you might say.” 

There was a little pause on the platform while 
Lady Muirfield passed a scribbled note to the next 
speaker. 

“I am so sorry,” he read, “but dear Canon 
Crosbie has spoken so long that tea is ready, and 
the nights are so dark just now as there is no moon, 
that I am dreadfully afraid your speech will have 
to be quite short.” 

Lord Wellingborough nodded to his hostess and 
stood up. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, I have very little time 
at my disposal, but as I have very little to say 
that is no disadvantage. ” His voice was cool and 
quiet and so matter-of-fact, that Patricia felt as 


The Drawing-Room Meeting 229 

if a big window had been opened and a breath of 
reviving fresh air was sweeping through her soul. 

“We have heard much this afternoon that is 
interesting and instructive and inspiring, but I 
hope Canon Crosbie and Lady Muirfield will 
forgive me — the rest of you will, I know, — if I 
say that to me the charm of this afternoon’s 
meeting lies in the fact that nobody need give 
anything at all. ” 

The audience opened their eyes and ears, — Lady 
Muirfield shook her head frantically, and Canon 
Crosbie flushed up with warmth and looked as if 
he would almost immediately bounce up on to his 
feet. 

“I understand,” continued the calm, level tones, 
“that you have all already subscribed to this 
fund up to the very limits of your duty and its 
demands. The laity of England always seem to 
me to do their duty in giving with wonderful con- 
scientiousness, and you, here, are no exception 
to that most commendable rule. But the one 
thought I want to bring home to you this afternoon 
in my few minutes, is, that it is just beyond the 
bound of duty that enjoyment begins. Charm 
lies in choice, and up to a certain point we have no 
choice. So far in everything we must go — civiliza- 
tion demands it, society demands it, learning 
demands it, life demands it, — but it is beyond that 
point that we find happiness. Run the thought 
into any and every department of life and you will 
see my meaning. We must learn to read, but the 


230 


Patricia 


joys of literature lie beyond that ‘must.’ We 
must learn to walk — but the athlete starts from 
that finishing point; we must be civil and court- 
eous to our fellows, — but friendship is in the next 
stage altogether. And so in giving, the same rule 
holds good. When we give the bit more than we 
need to, then do we find the blessedness. This is 
not idealism, it is practical everyday experience, 
and therefore it needs no verbal proving. You 
know as well as I do the charm of the country 
beyond. And ” — here the speaker’s voice deepened 
and strengthened into an earnestness which com- 
manded and compelled — “if we would but bring 
our dull minds to realize it, the ethics of happiness 
as well as the mere law of goodness are contained 
in the injunction to ‘ let him have thy cloke also. ’ 
It was not for the sake of invoking a generous 
self-sacrifice that that advice was given — but 
that the man who was good enough not to resist 
the rightful demands of need, should himself have 
the happiness which is hidden in the cloke also. 
So, let me repeat it, — you have already answered 
the call of duty — this subscription list which I hold 
in my hand has claimed the coat; if you want to 
feel real joy in your giving, let him have your cloke 
also.” 

A great burst of applause broke out as the 
speaker sat down. The laity smiled. Everyone 
felt quite at home all of a sudden. 

“Don’t have another hymn,” whispered Lord 
Wellingborough to the chairman, and the latter 


The Drawing-Room Meeting 231 

obeyed. There was an instant buzz of conversa- 
tion, as the company drifted towards the dining- 
room, and a cheerful tinkling of coin into the 
china bowl which was held by Freda Muirfield 
as she stood in the doorway. 

“Will you introduce me to Lord Welling- 
borough?” asked Patricia stopping beside her for 
a minute. “I want to know him.” And a few 
minutes later they were talking together as only 
friends can, be they the friends of five minutes or 
of long years. 

“What did you think of Canon Crosbie’s 
speech? ” asked Patricia as they drifted towards the 
deep recess of a small window. 

“He is a good speaker — of a type,” replied 
Lord Wellingborough guardedly. 

“Well, I detested it,” she continued hotly — 
“it made me grudge every penny that might be 
given to that old restoration fund ; but that is the 
worst of drawing-room meetings, don’t you think? 
They so often set you against an object to which 
previously you had no special objection. Besides, 
I hate dying children dragged in. ” 

“ I hate children to be dying, but I’d rather they 
were in a speech than in a hospital ward, any way, ” 
and he smiled with his eyes though not with his 
lips. 

“It’s cheap to slaughter innocents to emphasize 
a point,” persisted Patricia. 

“Only he doesn’t slaughter them. He only 
takes a story he once heard — perhaps it was true, 


232 


Patricia 


but let us hope it wasn’t — and he wears it thread- 
bare with repetition; and, why shouldn’t he? 
People at evening meetings love that story — some 
even at afternoon ones are touched by it — and to 
touch anybody with anything is a feat to be proud 
of in these days.” 

“ Well, it didn’t touch me. ” 

“ 1 am not sure that it didn’t — but at the wrong 
point.” 

“It made me hot and ashamed and angry, — at 
least the whole speech did.” 

Lord Wellingborough’s face was a trifle stem 
as he looked out of the window. 

“That was a pity,” he said after a slight pause. 

“And then when you spoke you laid a cool, 
quiet voice on one’s feverish ruffled mood, and my 
temperature went down, and I felt better. ” 

“I am glad of that. But you are difficult 
people to talk to, you know. At least you are. 
And between three and four o’clock in the after- 
noon is a bad time to talk to any one. ” 

“Why do you say ‘at least you are’?’ ’ persisted 
Patricia. 

“Because I mean it. For instance the lady on 
your right was not at all difficult to talk to. The 
fault with her was that she was too easy. ” 

“How do you know?” 

“By using my eyes and my head. And people 
who are too easy have a demoralizing effect on a 
speaker.” 

“I don’t understand. At least I want you to 


The Drawing-Room Meeting 233 

explain, ” and Patricia smiled a little as if to her- 
self. 

“We are agreed, ” he remarked as if irrelevantly, 
“An explanation of what we do understand is 
often delightful, but of what we do not is insup- 
portable. Therefore I don’t mind confiding in 
you that hearers like your friend ” 

“My aunt.” 

“ — Your aunt, simply tempt a speaker to be 
cheap and sensational and sickly.” 

“She would not tempt you!” 

“Oh yes! she might. The passion for playing 
on your audience is as great to a speaker as 
musicians feel for playing on their instruments, 
and there is a distinctly lower delight in what is 
called execution, than that which ought only to ap- 
ply to composition. Do you see? ” 

Patricia nodded. 

“Canon Crosbie excels in execution,” she re- 
marked. 

“He does indeed — and he plays some good old- 
fashioned tunes too — with variations. But this 
afternoon wasn’t the occasion for good old-fash- 
ioned tunes.” 

“I like old-fashioned times,” remarked Patricia 
perversely — “I love the sort of hymns you sway 
to in church on a Sunday evening like The day 
Thou gavest. ” 

“Let us sway to the Glory of God — in hymn 
number 477. And they do, too,” 

“Do you think I should?” 


234 


Patricia 


“No. You might sway to the enjoyment of 
your emotional egotism, and because, if I am not 
mistaken, you have plenty of artistic sympathy; 
but I do not think you would to the glory of God — 
yet.” 

“But I wasn’t the only difficult person surely?” 
persisted Patricia, half hoping that she was. 

“Of course not. And by no means the most 
difficult, on account of your artistic sympathy. 
That party which came with Lady Farringford was 
the worst. The bridge-playing spinster, and the 
two undergraduates, and the great professor I 
recognized, and the ordinary unimaginative, in- 
artistic, shrewd, hard-headed man of the world 
like Lord Farringford, and the Attorney-General 
who was with him, and his secretary — oh! it was 
lamentable!” 

1 1 What was? Y ou look quite angry ! ’ ’ 

“I am quite angry in a hopeless, headachy 
sort of way, because — can I trust you with the 
truth?” 

“You can,” said the girl simply; and then she 
flushed suddenly, for, though he did not know it, 
she was just the person that he could not trust. 

“ I believe you. Well, I am angry because of the 
immense harm which men like Canon Crosbie 
unwittingly do.” 

“Do you think he did me harm?” 

“A little. But — if you will forgive what sounds 
abominably rude — I don’t think it much matters. ” 

Patricia tossed her head. 


The Drawing-Room Meeting 235 

‘‘It seems to me that when people are abomin- 
ably rude, and know it, that is just the reason why 
they should not be forgiven. Yet they seem to 
consider it an excuse.” 

“But I wasn’t really abominably rude — it only 
sounded like it,” and Jim Wellingborough’s smile 
was singularly and unexpectedly sunshiny, “be- 
cause the reason why such harm did not matter 
so far as you were concerned, is owing to the fact 
that you are young and sympathetic and — not 
stupid, I think, so it was not irrevocable.” 

“And the others?” 

“Barring the Cambridge boys the others are not 
young, and they are distinctly unsympathetic 
with what we have to say, and — in spite of their 
Attorney- Generalism they are a bit stupid, too. 
Astonishingly so in spiritual matters.” 

“How do you mean?” 

“There is a lot of the boy left in most men, and 
the boyish dread of being preached at, and the 
ignorantly young idea that souls are adjuncts of 
women and clergymen, and that if they tamper 
with such confectionery they will somehow get 
their fingers sticky, and the world will laugh at 
them for it, and they will lower their own intellec- 
tual dignity, and all that.” 

“Capital idea that of yours, Wellingborough,” 
exclaimed Lord Farringford elbowing his way 
past them, through the crowd with a cup of tea, 
“it bucked us all up a bit. ” 

“Yes,” assented Lord Wellingborough “only, 


236 


Patricia 


you see, it is not mine. That is what makes it 
so capital.*’ 

“My dear fellow, you are a visionary! I never 
believe a word you say, but I always enjoy listening 
to you. I wish you were oftener in the House of 
Lords. We want some good speakers there.” 

“I’d rather speak to the monuments in West- 
minster Abbey. You’d move them about as soon. ’ ’ 

Lord Farringford laughed. “Speaking is not 
usually a motor power. It is pleasant to the ears, 
and the intellect, and the senses, and even the 
emotions — but there is no dynamo.” 

“There ought to be, — and I venture to think 
there has never yet been a great speaker without 
a dynamo. The difficulty is to establish the 
proper connection.” 

“You made a mistake, Wellingborough. If you 
had gone into politics you would have been in the 
Cabinet by now. We want some good young 
blood in these days.” 

Lord Wellingborough smiled, and again Patricia 
felt that funny feeling which she did not quite 
understand. Up till now it was a feeling which 
she had only inspired, and therefore she had never 
met it, because it was instead always following in 
her train. 

“Have you ever been down here before? I 
have never seen you.” She asked with a great 
desire to make him talk to her again. 

“ Not since I grew up. Alice Muirfield does not 
exactly approve of me, you see.” 


The Drawing-Room Meeting 23 7 


“ Does she think with Lord Farringford that you 
ought to have gone into politics?” 

“Perhaps she does. But I meant she does not 
approve of me as a parson.” 

“Why not?” 

“I am not cut out quite after her pattern, and 
my dear cousin likes things and people cut out 
according to her measurements. And in that she 
is not peculiar; we all do, I suppose; the difference 
lies in our measurements.” 

“No,” said Patricia thoughtfully, “the differ- 
ence lies in the fact that some people deal in 
arithmetic and others in art. I read in a bio- 
graphy not long ago of a man who never under- 
stood that to paint a forest was not to draw and 
colour accurately so many dozen separate trees. 
And in that lies the difference of people’s estimates 
— the difference between proportion and per- 
spective.” 

He nodded. “ Do you live down here? ” he asked 
suddenly. 

“Yes, I live at the rectory with my uncle and 
aunt and cousins. My cousins thought Canon 
Crosbie’s speech delightful.” 

“So did mine,” and Jim laughed, “and if the 
room had been filled with cousins, it would have 
been all right. But it wasn’t, you see, and so it 
was all wrong. ” 

“In spite of Lord Farringford don’t you think 
there is a dynamo in Canon Crosbie? He sounded 
to me like a room full of machinery in motion,” 


238 


Patricia 


“Oh yes, there is plenty of motion, but it may 
drive people in the wrong direction, and that is 
where the harm comes in. ” 

“Stupid old thing!” said Patricia. “I hate 
stupidity. ” 

“So do I, but not only intellectual stupidity.” 

“Isn’t that the only sort? — because physical 
stupidity is only a reflex stupidity after all. ” 

“Spiritual stupidity is equally bad. And it 
really lies at the root of most things that spoil life. 
I don’t believe people are bad, as a rule, but they 
are so insufferably stupid.” 

“Like Canon Crosbie?” queried Patricia with a 
touch of doubt. 

‘ ‘ No, — more like the Attorney-General ! Canon 
Crosbie isn’t really stupid — his failures come from 
a want of sense of perspective, his proportions are 
correct enough, and from the latter come his 
many successes. The people who are stupid are 
not those who read and write the wrong things, 
but the people who can’t read and write at all. ” 

“Are there any such people in these advanced 
days?” 

“Hundreds; and more still who confine them- 
selves to words of one syllable. ” 

“How do you mean?” 

“Again, because you know, I don’t mind telling 
you. To be content with things temporal and to 
reckon only with factors that we in our ignorance 
can prove, is to acknowledge that we have no 
desire of development beyond the spelling-book and 


The Drawing-Room Meeting 239 

the black-board, — and such things to me are insup- 
port ably dull. But don’t you think we had better 
have some tea now?” and they moved away with 
the stream of people towards the hall and dining- 
room, where long counters stretched out their 
hospitable arms, and offered food to the hungry 
of every imaginable variety that with propriety 
could be consumed at tea-time. 

Patricia nibbled a biscuit and wondered whether 
Lord Wellingborough would consider her stupid. 
She decided on the whole he could not; but she 
felt a little uncomfortable about what he might 
consider her when he read her book. However, 
with the cheerful disregard of future consequences 
which was her racial inheritance, she remembered 
that it would be months before her book was pub- 
lished, and till then she would enjoy him unmo- 
lested; so she took a sandwich and another cup 
of tea, and asked him to come and see her people 
at the rectory on the following day. 

And this Lord Wellingborough was singularly 
ready to do. He would like to see the country 
parsonage which had bred so untypical an inmate 
as the girl beside him; and he would also like to 
see her again, for she was, somehow, so different 
from all the countless girls whom he had known. 
Wherein that difference lay he had no suspicion; 
but because he was a man, and interested in her, 
he studiously avoided mentioning her to his 
cousins; had he been a woman he would have 
asked every possible question about the object 


240 


Patricia 


of such interest, and talked incessantly on that 
subject. Therefore he learned nothing of 
Patricia’s history, and had not the slightest idea 
of the prominent place she occupied in Lady 
Muirfield’s mind, and Golly’s affections. Had he 
known it, things might have turned out very 
differently. 

The cheerful chatter of a company chiefly com- 
posed of women filled the rooms, and ran up into 
every crevice and comer as the inrush of a rising 
tide. 

The Attorney-General wanted to be introduced 
to Lord Wellingborough, of whose personality and 
powers he had heard much talk. A recent strike 
had clogged the machinery of London, and it was 
Jim Wellingborough who had brought it to a close. 
To find in one man an orator and an administrator 
was a rare and valuable find, and though he stood 
outside any political party, each political power 
reckoned with him as an asset in social politics. 
The men knew him as a man and trusted him; 
the masters knew him as a peer and respected him. 
The men called him a socialist, the masters called 
him a clergyman of the Church of England ; both 
admired his ability, both believed in his motives, 
yet as a party politician he was elusive; neither 
side could claim him; both wanted him. But 
humanity could always claim him, need could 
always arrest him ; though it was not the obvious 
needs that appealed to and drew him most. The 
obvious found little response in his thoughts and 


The Drawing-Room Meeting 241 

motives, and ways of working and hoping and 
caring. He was never to be found there. “A 
strange fellow!” his comrades said, but his strange- 
ness lay not in the unexplored so much as in the 
unexpected. And so he was delightful to talk to, 
and work with, for he always took you by an 
untrodden way to even the nearest and most 
ordinary goal. 

The Attorney-General had much to say, and Jim 
Wellingborough was always intensely interested 
in the men who are the levers of the State. But 
somehow that day the subjects, even his pet ones, 
failed to grip. His eyes were drawn constantly 
across the crowd of hats to a pale, clear-cut face 
with eyes the colour of a moonlit pool, which he 
had seen for the first time that day. A face more 
attractive even than beautiful, he thought, and 
the moment he looked she caught his look with 
that magnetic sympathy which we have all felt 
sometime in our lives. We catch a look and we 
smile, but Patricia did not smile; both wonder 
and awe were in her eyes for the brief minute 
during which his held them, and then a nodding 
feather came between them, and when he looked 
again she was gone. 

The collection as far exceeded Lady Muirfield’s 
hopes as it disappointed Canon Crosbie’s. To 
extract a hundred pounds by daylight out of 
fancy bags and trouser pockets is almost a miracle, 
but nearly a hundred and seventy was the gener- 
ous outcome of the drawing-room meeting. 


Patricia 


242 

“You got it all but about one and eleven pence 
halfpenny you know,” said Jim to the Canon as 
they counted up the coins. But herein he was 
wrong. 

“I gave a fiver,” Sir Richard Cardew confided 
in his wife on their homeward journey. 

“Oh! Dick, that was extravagant of you! And 
you know how fearfully hard up we are, and the 
boys going to Eton so soon. ” 

“I didn’t mean to,” he said apologetically, “in 
fact I thought half a sovereign would have done 
for that ranting old parson, just to save us from 
perdition, you know.” 

Lady Cardew laughed, “Wasn’t he awful? But 
I cried over the dying child. It made me think of 
our precious Peter.” 

“But he’s not dying, thank God.” 

“Of course not, only he’s about that age, and 
somehow I felt upset, and thought perhaps he 
might die, and what I should feel like if he did. 
Oh Dick ! you don’t think Peter is the least teeny 
bit delicate, do you?” 

‘ 1 Rather not . And it ’ s foolish to talk like that . ’ ’ 

“I do hate people who make you nervous about 
your children, and that horrid old man frightened 
me so. He seemed to suggest that they might 
die if you didn’t give all your money to that nasty 
Muirfield church. I emptied my purse straight 
off I felt so upset. Were you upset, too? ” 

“Not in the least, and that is all rot what you 
say. If I’d known he had upset you I wouldn’t 


The Drawing-Room Meeting 243 

have given the half-sovereign — old fool! But it 
was the other chap who got my fiver. There was 
a lot to think about in what he said. I liked him. ” 

“Oh, so did I! He was so nice, and ordinary, 
and cheerful, and didn’t think we were so dread- 
fully wicked after all.” 

“He didn’t strike me as ordinary — quite the 
reverse — but I understand what you mean.” 

“You know, Dick, when one of the boys is ill at 
night, and everything is horrible and strange and 
wretched, and then when you wake the next morn- 
ing and find he is quite better and there is no 
further anxiety, how lovely and ordinary you feel 
again, and as if it had been only a bad dream. I 
felt like that about Peter when Lord Welling- 
borough spoke. We seemed all to get normal and 
comfy again. I hated Canon Crosbie, ” she added 
with fervour. 

“Women may be bullied into religion,” remarked 
Sir Richard, “but men never will be. The more 
he raved the colder I grew. That sort of thing 
may suit revivalist meetings, but it doesn’t strike 
me as good form. ” 

“And Peter has a splendid appetite,” mur- 
mured Lady Cardew. 

“I wish we could get Wellingborough, ” said 
the Attorney-General to Lord Farringford as they 
motored away from Lynfield, “he is a coming 
power.” 

“You never will. There is no catching those 
fanatics.” 


244 


Patricia 


“He is not a fanatic. I should not want him 
if he were. A fanatic is a very doubtful asset in 
political life, he may even prove to be a liability. 
In times past this has been known to be the case. 
But England is at heart a very sentimental nation, 
and a man like Wellingborough, even though he 
may be a bit of an idealist, can condense and 
command the force of sentiment, as the pure 
politician can rarely do.” 

“He has a strong personality, no doubt. ” 

“And though we may choose to bluff it,” con- 
tinued Sir Fairfax Foden, “England has got a soul 
as well as a heart, and however much some of 
us may deplore it, she is a respectably religious 
nation; and you can’t govern a people without 
allowing for their inherited characteristics. Now 
Wellingborough is an expert in their religious 
creeds and emotions, and that gives him a big grip, 
for he is far too clever a fellow to make a mull of his 
opportunities, as that fatuous old dignitary did 
this afternoon. Couldn’t you see how Welling- 
borough struck the right note at once?” 

“I liked what he said very much.” 

“Of course you did. He meant you to. In 
my opinion religion is a form of sentiment. The 
sort of early memory and home-training business, 
which dogs most of us through our later life in a 
queer, unreasonable, haunting way, and which we 
never forget, however completely we may outgrow 
it. So I believe the Christianity of England is an 
emotional memory — but such has great influence, 


The Drawing-Room Meeting 245 


and neither men nor nations will stand their 
cherished childish memories being derided nor 
despised. And it is this which Wellingborough 
understands so perfectly, and so he never plays a 
false note. ” 

“But he would not agree with you in this view 
of things. ” 

“Of course he would not. To him Christianity 
is rather the most vital and up-to-date force of the 
whole creation. But it is because he takes it so 
sincerely, and believes in it so tremendously, that 
he holds the mastery over the sentiment which it 
evokes. And that is a force which no politician 
can afford to ignore — just as he can never ignore 
the third great party that always stands between 
the Front and the Opposition Benches — I mean 
that of public opinion. ” 

“But it sways first to one side and then to the 
other, ” said Lord Farringford, “just as the parties 
do.” 

“Yes, but you cannot reckon on it as a safe 
majority, nor summon it with a four-lined whip. 
When once it turns from ebb to flow no King 
Canute can stay its tide. ” 

“I thought you implied that Jim Welling- 
borough could?” 

“No. His value lies in that he can regulate to 
diverse uses the mighty force of that tide, whether 
it flows or ebbs. He is outside party, you see, but 
he is inside the people’s confidence, and no position 
can be a more commanding one.” 


246 


Patricia 


“Wherein do you think his real power lies?” 
asked Lord Farringford. 

“It is made up of many ingredients. The 
strongest, I think, is the power of putting into 
words the immense force of his own convictions. 
Words are effective enough when we don’t mean 
what we say, as all we politicians know,” and 
Sir Fairfax lit another cigarette with a smile, “but 
when they are the expression of vital convictions 
their influence is immense. Wellingborough al- 
ways means what he says, and believes what he 
preaches, and cares for what he does, — therefore 
he touches and moves people.” 

“That is true about all the leaders of mankind. 
And what other ingredients?” 

“He is a clever fellow, and he has a very sym- 
pathetic manner — and last, but not least, in 
London at any rate, he is a bachelor with many 
thousands a year!” 

“I should have said he was more like the 
fellow in the street who suddenly stands still 
and looks up at something. A crowd collects 
in no time and looks up to see if they can see it, 
too. I always feel with Wellingborough that 
he is seeing something we don’t, and so men 
and women, more especially women, gather round 
him and try to follow his eyes. I do myself, 
though I’ve never seen his vision yet. He was 
a funny son for old Wellingborough to have 
had!” 

“I never knew him, but I heard enough about 


The Drawing-Room Meeting 247 

him — especially at the Foreign Office. The pres- 
ent man must be a throw-back!” 

“ On his mother’s side. She came of some non- 
conformist stock — I forget what.” 

“Ah! that accounts for the preaching strain!” 

And then the conversation drifted off into the 
discussion of bye-elections, and the probable date of 
the next dissolution, and the state of Ireland, and 
such subjects as men have been talking about for 
the last hundred years at least. 

“That speech of Lord Wellingborough’s was 
most mistaken,” remarked Uncle George as they 
sat down to supper that evening. 

“Perfectly ridiculous,” added Maggie, “telling 
people they need not give, just when Canon 
Crosbie had insisted on their doing so, and every- 
one was so worked up by his splendid speech. ” 

“I think Lord Wellingborough is very interest- 
ing-looking, ” said Agnes, “so distingue and aris- 
tocratic. ” 

“I do not approve of twisting the Scriptures,” 
continued the rector, “and the correct rendering 
of the text he quoted in part is quite enough to get 
out of it. The general principle of the preceding 
verse is that we are not to resist evil; that is, 
according to the original Greek, that we are not to 
set ourselves against an evil person who is injuring 
us. And if a man is litigious and determined to 
take all the advantage the law can give him; 
following us with vexatious and expensive law- 
suits — we are commanded not to imitate him — 


248 


Patricia 


but, rather than contend with a revengeful spirit 
in courts of justice, to take a trifling injury and 
yield to him.” 

“Nothing is more expensive than a lawsuit,” 
burst in Aunt Lucy. “My father had one in his 
family and it swallowed up every farthing. It is 
really much wiser, as well as of course more Chris- 
tian, according to the rector and the Bible, not to 
go to law if you can possibly avoid it. ” 

“My dear, I had not finished what I was saying 
by way of exposition, ” said Uncle George, and his 
wife subsided instantly. 

“The Jews wore two principal garments, an 
interior and an exterior. The interior is spoken 
of in Holy Writ as the coat, or the tunic, and was 
made commonly of linen, and encircled the whole 
body, extending down to the knees. Sometimes 
beneath this garment, as in the case of the priests, 
there was another garment corresponding to 
pantaloons. ” 

“Only in the case of the priests?” queried Pa- 
tricia. “It seems just the opposite to our priests 
who are frocked.” 

“That is not a seemly subject for profane 
joking, ” reproved her uncle, and then he continued 
verbosely. “The coat or tunic was extended to 
the neck and had long or short sleeves. Over 
this was commonly worn an upper garment, 
alluded to in St. Matthew’s narrative as the cloak, 
or mantle. It was made commonly nearly square, 
of different sizes, five or six cubits long, and as 


The Drawing-Room Meeting 249 

many broad, and wrapped around the body, and 
thrown off when labour was performed. If an 
adversary wished to obtain at law one of these 
garments, we are told, rather than contend with 
him, let him have the other also. A reference to 
various articles of apparel occurs frequently in the 
New Testament, and it is desirable to have a cor- 
rect view of the ancient mode of dress, in order to 
obtain a correct understanding of the Bible.” 

“It is certainly most illuminating to know all 
about the cut of the cloak and the length of its 
cubits,” said Patricia again; “only I thought 
you measured cities by cubits and not over- 
coats. ” 

“The Bible never mentions over-coats,” said 
Maggie sternly. 

“But uncle spoke of a garment worn over a coat 
— so what better name could it have?” 

“The Asiatic modes of dress,” continued the 
rector, “are nearly the same from age to age; and 
hence it is not difficult to illustrate the passages 
where such a reference occurs. The ordinary 
dress in the year of our Lord consisted of the inner 
garment, the outer garment, the girdle and the 
sandals. The girdle served to confine the loose 
flowing robe, or outer garment, to the body. It 
also held the garment when it was tucked up, as 
it was usually in walking or in labour; also in the 
girdle was the place of the purse ” 

“That reminds me, George,” exclaimed Aunt 
Lucy, “what have you done with my purse? I 


250 


Patricia 


lent it you this afternoon when you found you had 
forgotten your own. ” 

“It is a pity you hadn’t a girdle on, ” chimed in 
his niece, “then there would have been a place for 
everything, including the purse, and everything 
in its place. ” 

“I must deprecate most seriously, Patricia, the 
flippant manner in which you refer to inspired 
words. The words in the Bible must be quoted 
with reverence for they are beyond criticism.” 

“Then what is the employment of the higher 
critics, might I ask?” 

“A blasphemous presumption!” exclaimed 
Uncle George excitedly; and immediately Aunt 
Lucy, detecting disturbance and danger in the 
subject, flew to change it. 

“Dear Lady Muirfleld wanted to know whether 
their second chauffeur’s wife has been churched, my 
dear; and if not, will you see that she is, without 
delay.” 

“Most certainly,” replied the rector more 
cheerfully, for there was nothing he enjoyed more 
than the pursuit of recalcitrant parishioners ; 
and he felt the breathless satisfaction of a shepherd 
boy when his sheep were safely driven back within 
the Church’s fold. 

“The number of Easter communicants is a kind 
of godly sport to Uncle George,” said Patricia 
profanely one day, — “he is so anxious to make a 
bigger bag than that of the neighbouring parishes. ” 


CHAPTER X 


LORD WELLINGBOROUGH 

On the following day Lord Wellingborough 
called at the rectory. The Vaughans were greatly 
surprised, but Patricia was not. 

“You must show me the church,’ ’ he said, 
addressing the rector with his lips, but Patricia 
with his eyes. 

“And you will come back to tea, will you not?” 
asked Aunt Lucy beaming. She was so thankful 
in her heart that it was not Canon Crosbie who 
had called, whom she regarded since his fiery 
speech very much as one would regard the prophet 
Elijah socially; as if you could not entertain him 
with anything less than a miracle. 

“ Our church is ancient and interesting — ” began 
Uncle George, when he was interrupted by the 
inevitable knock at the door which denoted pa- 
rochial need. 

“If you please, sir, old Betty ’as swallowed a 
fish-bone as is stuck in her throat, and though she’s 
took the strongest tea as she could make, it 
ain’t moved it, and will you please come?” 

No occupation, however interesting, could keep 

251 


252 


Patricia 


back the rector when called by one of his 
people. He rushed as unfailingly to their rescue 
as his wife ran to his, and had the King himself 
summoned Uncle George when a parishioner 
wanted him, the rector would have sent His 
Majesty a courteous apology and only regretted 
his inability to obey. 

“You take Lord Wellingborough, Patricia. I 
will follow as soon as I am able. And do not for- 
get the brasses in the chancel, nor the monument 
of the man wearing the order of the Sun of York. ” 

Both of which, however, Patricia did forget as 
they talked in the vestry of commonplace subjects, 
in that unique way which rarely passes by us but 
once in the span of life. And then they wandered 
round the church-yard and looked at the view, 
and the grave stones, and the yews, and any object 
on which to hang the magic wire which found its 
receiver in each of their hearts. And as it was 
cold hanging about, they thought a brisk walk 
would be better, and so they crossed the fields 
and came to the hills quite oblivious of the church’s 
architecture or its rector’s injunctions. 

“Do you like the country?” asked Patricia, 
wondering why it was such a lovely day, and why 
the air tasted so nice. 

“Of course I do — but I like some other things 
better. ” 

“Such as?” 

“People, and work, and power; and none of 
these find their setting in country life.” 


Lord Wellingborough 253 


“ Men nearly always have a vital interest in their 
work, — I envy them that. ” 

“But women work, too. ” 

“Yes, but work is never the real picture for a 
woman. It is only the background, or the fore- 
ground; it is never the thing itself, as it is with a 
man. ” 

“Then what is the real picture for a woman?” 
Jim Wellingborough asked, with quickened pulses 
for he guessed the answer. 

“A portrait,” answered Patricia with unex- 
pected readiness. And then they both laughed — 
that happy laughter that does not spring from 
humour, but, as a child’s, from sheer gladness of 
heart. 

“Can’t men have a portrait, too?” he asked. 

“Of course they can, only it will be a figure in 
the picture — not like the woman’s, which is all por- 
trait, and only a smudge of dark paint behind it. ” 

“But women have not always a portrait,” he 
argued. 

“I think they have, though not always perhaps 
of a man. It may be of a child or of a friend. But 
the personal is everything to a woman. ” 

“I know. That is why religion is so much 
easier to a woman than to a man. She runs to 
meet the Gospel of the Personal, while men have 
to ‘seek it carefully with tears,’” said Lord Wel- 
lingborough. “Some men have not a picture at 
all; they have the drawing of a problem of Euclid, 
or the outline of some design. ” 


2 54 


Patricia 


“ And some have a parochial register, ” suggested 
Patricia, “Uncle George, for instance.” 

“Oh no! you are wrong there. It is much more 
than a register. ” 

“How do you know?” 

“ Because he is a parson. Call it an index if you 
like, but it is much more than a mere list of names. 
Old Betty, for instance, may be in the index, but 
what does the index refer him to? Why, a poor 
old soul in trouble whom he has hastened to help. ” 

“But parsons love numbers.” 

“Not numbers qud numbers always, I think. 
Numbers qua something much bigger and better 
than numbers.” 

“Well, you are a parson, so I suppose you ought 
to know. ” 

“And you are not a parson so I do not think you 
ought to understand. But tell me one thing, — 
why don’t you like parsons?” 

“I don’t count you as one,” said Patricia, and 
then they both laughed again. 

“I feel ashamed,” he said. 

“You ought to be frightfully complimented.” 

“By what you imply, I am; by what you say I 
am, most certainly not.” 

“Why?” 

“Because I ought and want to be counted as a 
parson. ” 

Patricia looked puzzled. “How queer!” she 
said. 

“Why queer?” 


Lord Wellingborough 255 


“It is impossible to connect a parson with any- 
thing really interesting,” she explained gravely. 
“Of course you might get a sort of romantic priest- 
hero like Father Damien, but the ordinary typical 
clergyman is never effective and never arresting, 
and hopelessly dull and narrow and conventional, 
and intellectually behind the times. If he is a 
failure he is squalid, and if he is a success he is 
sleek and unctious. But, as I said before, of 
course you don’t count.” 

“How unfortunate you must have been in the 
type of clergymen you have met,” said Lord 
Wellingborough. 

“Not specially so, — they are all much of a 
muchness.” 

“You are really rather funny, you know.” 
And he smiled as a man smiles at a ludicrous child. 

“I am not a bit funny just now. I am in 
earnest.” 

“‘Intellectually behind the times’ is such an 
exquisite epithet to apply to some of our giant 
scholars, and ‘never arresting’ is equally so, when 
you have seen crowds following a man and hanging 
on his words ; or when you have seen still deeper, 
and felt souls stirred, and watched the birth in 
human beings of things eternal and immeasurable 
and unfathomable. ” 

Patricia walked on in silence and by and by 
Jim spoke again. 

“Of course I know that though there are giants 
on the earth in these days, all men are not so. 


256 


Patricia 


But in what profession can you find only giants? 
Do you, for instance, judge literature by The 
Leisure Hour , or music by the barrel organs, or 
art by the shilling oleograph? Or do you judge 
of lawyers from the standpoint of the briefless 
barrister, or politicians from the local associations 
wherein friends are more dangerous even than foes? 
No,” and he shrugged his shoulders, “you must 
keep your sense of proportion, though that of 
perspective is much more persuasive, I know.” 

“How do you mean?” 

“You must not think that those who chance to 
stand in your foreground are really bigger than the 
far-away ones, just because nearness always looms 
large. That would be a stupid and childish way of 
reckoning.” 

“You have made me feel a bit stupid once or 
twice, ” and Patricia’s expression was much sweeter 
than usual. 

“ People are apt to meet the best men in politics 
or literature, and then compare with them the 
lesser lights of the church’s firmament. That is 
not fair, and it is also futile. Comparisons must 
lie between similar grades in the different profes- 
sions; and any that you can name in other worlds 
I can match in the church. Though it is not only 
on behalf of those in high and commanding places 
that I am proud of parsons, but of the rank and file.” 

“Well, there I cannot follow you. I might see 
your point about the greater lights, but it is the 
lesser that put me off.” 


Lord Wellingborough 257 


“You don’t know enough about them, and you 
judge only by one standard. ” 

‘‘And what is that? You are telling me a lot 
about myself, Lord Wellingborough, that I did 
not know before.” 

“Are you very angry?” 

“Furious,” replied Patricia sweetly; “please 
go on.” 

“Your standard is first, cleverness, second, smart- 
ness.” 

“I suppose you are right,” and Patricia gave a 
little laugh. 

“Therefore you are incapable of ever seeing 
much that is beautiful, and all that is best. Rather 
hard on you, I must say, to have this mental 
astigmatism. ” 

“That is what accounts for my stupidity. I 
am like the short-sighted children who bump 
their heads, I suppose.” 

“ Poor you ! it is so dull not to see things. ” 

“Still, if the only object I fail to focus is the 
typical parson, I think I can bear up!” 

“But you mustn’t fail to focus anything. I 
won’t let you be half, or a quarter, or even a tiny 
bit blind. ” 

Patricia felt a delightful feeling like cold water 
and hot sunshine trickling down her spine. The 
“I won’t let you” sounded so delicious. She 
looked at his long, lean, strong hand and thought 
how it might hurt. 

“When you can’t see things that are fine, of 


17 


258 


Patricia 


course it doesn’t matter to the things, but it 
matters so dreadfully to you, ” he continued. 

“What are you talking about that is fine, and 
I don’t see?” 

“That crowd of men, whom only Crockford can 
count, who give up most things that make life here 
worth living, and, with untiring patience and per- 
severance and self-denial, build up in unimportant 
and almost unknown parishes a centre of usefulness 
and helpfulness and courtesy and kindness, which 
are unparalleled in every other class. You go as 
a stranger into any distant village and who will be 
your first friend? These things are fine. You ask 
an ordinary unknown layman even a geographical 
question, and if he is not a stranger in those parts, 
which by the way he usually is, he will look upon 
you as a bore or an intruder, and you’ll feel it, too. 
But ask the clergyman, and see the trouble he will 
instantly take to answer you and to aid you. You 
saw no beauty in old Betty’s summons just now. ” 

“Oh! didn’t I?” laughed Patricia. “I have 
been rejoicing in it ever since. And may I ask, — 
did you?” 

“You know I did,” and Wellingborough’s voice 
was low and tense, “but it wasn’t the beauty I 
was referring to. It was one I dare not refer 
to — yet. ” 

Then they walked on in silence for a little. A 
happy, full, significant silence which said much to 
them both, and which they both enjoyed so 
intensely that they could not bear it any longer. 


Lord Wellingborough 259 

“We forgot to see the church,’’ said Patricia 
nervously. 

“So we did. Never mind. I will come to- 
morrow for that. ” 

“Aren’t you going away tomorrow?” Patricia 
asked surprised. 

“No. I shall accept Alice’s kind invitation to 
spend a few days in the country. I haven’t had 
a holiday for ages, and I need it. ” 

“I suppose you work very hard in London?” 

“Everybody works hard in London, it is only 
the occupations that differ. But look here,” he 
said more confidentially, “let’s talk about some- 
thing more interesting than me. ” 

“What shall we talk about then?” 

“You,” he said boldly. 

“You are the first man I ever met who did not 
want to talk about himself. They generally find 
it a most interesting subject.” 

“So do I, — only not the most interesting.” 

“ I think it would be most interesting of all if we 
talked about the weather,” suggested Patricia, 
feeling suddenly as if she would like to run and 
shout. 

“Or the view?” he chimed in. “Look at that 
stretch of wideness — isn’t it satisfying?” 

“There is something in wideness that makes me 
happy and sad, ” and her eyes were dreamy as she 
looked away over the country-side in the amber 
light of a mild winter’s day. A soft south wind 
had driven away the frost of the day before and no 


260 


Patricia 


charm is greater than that of winter’s smile, when 
the fields look rich and brown, and the evergreens 
display their glossy colour in contrast to the pen- 
cilled tracery of the leafless trees. And when the 
line of sunset is clear and yellow behind the indigo 
hills, then is the beauty complete, and we feel that 
even summer in all her glory cannot compare with 
days like these. 

4 ‘When nasty people are nice,” said Patricia 
thoughtfully, “it seems much more of a compli- 
ment than when nice people are. And such 
weather as this is doubly dear because it makes 
winter so much nicer than we thought it could be, 
or than it ought to be according to conventional 
standards, which are what I hate more than any- 
thing in the world. ” 

“Then avoid them,” said Jim Wellingborough 
drily. 

“ I thought I did, ” she answered with unwonted 
meekness. 

He shook his head. “There is the convention- 
ality of unconventionality, just as there is the 
affectation of naturalness. You have quoted to 
me this afternoon from the conventional text-book 
of the ordinary agnostic.” 

“Iam not an atheist,” said Patricia quickly. 

“I did not say you were. There are very few 
atheists left nowadays, except in butlers’ pantries 
— but there are many agnostics in spite of their 
being a little out of date. ” 

“Out of date?” repeated Patricia. 


Lord Wellingborough 


261 


** You see it is the fashion now to have a religion 
of some kind — be it Buddhism, or Christian Science 
or Theosophy, or Pantheism, or anything else — 
the newer the better — for we are very like the 
ancient Athenians in following after any new thing. 
But it is the correct thing to have a religion, and 
nobody is ever ashamed of it in these days. When 
I was at school boys were kicked for saying their 
prayers, now they would be kicked if they didn’t. 
All of which is good. But the fashion of agnostic- 
ism is passing, though of course there will always 
be a school of agnosticism — only young ladies 
don’t graduate in that school; they play on the 
doorstep. ” 

“ You are very hard on me, ” said Patricia softly, 
and a touch pathetically. 

“I always shall be, I am afraid,” and Welling- 
borough spoke truly, for he was one of the men who 
are always harder on the people they care for, than 
on those to whom they are pleasantly indifferent. 
But Patricia felt a sudden chill, and the happiness 
was wiped off her face as with a wet sponge. She 
remembered her book for the first time since they 
had started on this wonderful walk, and she 
doubted her power to carry it off with a high hand ; 
she also knew that if Wellingborough were angry 
she should care. 

“ I thought Christians made a point of forgiving 
things,” she said wistfully, and then without 
waiting for an answer: “Don’t you think Uncle 
George will be looking for us? We ought to 


262 


Patricia 


hurry back. I am rather cold,” and she shivered 
slightly. 

Jim Wellingborough looked at her keenly, much 
as a doctor regards a patient whose case he is 
called upon to diagnose. 

“There is a story somewhere,” he thought to 
himself, “but a girl like that must have stories. 
Her face is a story in itself,” but aloud he said: 
“What will you show me tomorrow?” 

“What would you like to see?” 

“I would like to see you . Anything else you 
can settle.” 

The cloud was chased from Patricia’s brow. 
There was a tone in his voice which thrilled her, 
and her Irish nature had wings like eagles with 
which to fly high and quickly from the low ground. 

“That is nice of you,” she answered smiling. 
“And I do like people to be nice to me. ” 

“ I will always be nice to you. ” 

“I wonder?” 

And then they heard Uncle George’s strident 
call as he searched for them in the church’s pre- 
cincts, and they looked at brasses and discussed 
architecture until the cheerful tea-bell pealed 
across the rectory lawn and summoned them to 
substantial refreshment. Aunt Lucy had hurriedly 
boiled some eggs with the idea that Lord Welling- 
borough’s appetite might be as great as his social 
position, and rejoiced exceedingly when his good 
breeding not only took one, but expressed admira- 
tion of the freshness of the same. 


Lord Wellingborough 263 

“ I expect the eggs you get in London are rarely 
fresh, ” she said sympathetically. 

“They are better where I am now, ” — his house 
lay within the halo of Grosvenor Square, — “but 
where I used to be in the East End you never tasted 
an egg like this.” 

“I once heard an amusing story about a curate 
and parts of an egg,” said Uncle George with 
unusual jocularity, “it was in this diocese.” 
And then Patricia laughed. 

“My love,” whispered her aunt, “you have 
laughed too soon. Your uncle has not got to the 
point yet. ” 

Uncle George looked displeased and his wife 
consequently anxious, but Lord Wellingborough 
made all right again by asking : 

“Please tell me your story, Mr. Vaughan.” 
And tea proceeded with all cheerfulness. Agnes 
was too shy to speak at all, but Maggie laid down 
the law on several important points, and settled 
a few popular heresies with some well-chosen 
and decisive words, and gave their guest many use- 
ful hints as to how to manage his own parish, 
in particular, and the Church in general, and 
pointed out the leakages in the latter’s adminis- 
tration, and the general spiritual development 
of the nation; and then the bell clanged for 
evensong, and the two clergymen went off to- 
gether to pray and praise on behalf of those 
who were much too busy smoking their pipes, or 
clearing away the tea, or chatting with their 


264 


Patricia 


neighbours, to conduct their devotions on their 
own account. 

The next few days Patricia and Jim Welling- 
borough spent practically together. They met, 
and walked, and talked, making rapid headway 
along the road that lovers tread, but they looked 
no further afield. The days were so perfect in 
themselves that they were content to live them 
with no forward or backward thoughts, and nei- 
ther had the slightest idea of the rate at which 
they were travelling. The remarkable thing was 
that nobody else noticed it either. It had long 
been decided in village circles that Patricia was 
to marry Golly; her aunt and cousins had her 
own authority for such a conclusion; and the 
Muirfields themselves, though ignoring any men- 
tion of the unpalatable fact, were yet resigned to 
it by the help of Grace, and were, so to speak, 
shaking the medicine as a preliminary to swallow- 
ing it, without the faintest suspicion of a possible 
leakage. Lady Muirfield sometimes wondered 
what Jim found so engrossing in the rector’s com- 
pany, which was what she believed he sought at the 
rectory, but decided it was the common interest 
of their profession. 

“It is remarkable how the clergy stick to each 
other, ” she said to her husband. “Jim spends all 
his time with Mr. Vaughan. I suppose they dis- 
cuss disestablishment and things of that kind. 
But I should hardly have thought they would have 
had so much in common. Jim is so clever and 


Lord Wellingborough 265 

so queer ; while our dear rector is not at all — 
queer. ” 

“They are both parish priests. I suppose that 
is the bond.” 

“ I do not like the word 1 priest ’ , ” reproved Lady 
Muirfield, “it sounds Romanish. Why cannot 
they be content to be called clergymen, which is 
what they are, and a nice wholesome name with 
nothing behind it?” 

“ Nobody is content with what they are, or with 
what they’ve got, in these radical days”; said her 
husband, “but as long as they don’t call themselves 
Father this or Father that, I don’t care. ” 

“Yes indeed!” and her ladyship shook her head. 
“Why, I sat next a man at luncheon at the Don- 
casters’, and he wore a sort of black dressing-gown 
and buckled shoes, and they actually introduced 
him as Father Wain wright. Oh! he was most 
dreadful and popish, and approved of confession. 
He actually said I ought to go to confession. Did 
you ever hear of such a thing, William? As if 
I should have anything to confess, even if I ap- 
proved of such a horrible papal rite!” 

Lord Muirfield laughed shortly. 

“I somehow don’t see you at the confessional, 
my dear.” 

“ I should never so forget myself, William. Be- 
sides, it would make me feel quite sinful and un- 
natural. ” 

“ I should never allow my wife to confess to any 
man”; so spoke the English lay mind, “especi- 


266 


Patricia 


ally when she was young,” he added half to 
himself. 

The last day of Jim Wellingborough’s visit 
came almost as a shock to himself and Patricia. 
They had been living so entirely in the present, 
and so intensely, that time seemed to have given 
place to a fragment of eternity, and there was no 
reckoning it by hours or days. It was infinitely 
short and it was also everlastingly long — proving 
even to mortal folk how simple a fact it is for a 
thousand years to be as one day and one day as a 
thousand years. They had spoken in words but 
said much more than that which was put into 
words. They had rushed to a crisis, but could not 
reach it; possibly, without knowing, they had 
passed it by. 

All was radiant and intangible and unspeakable, 
while winter smiled his sunlit smile and the south 
wind continued to blow. The ground looked spiky 
with the springing bulbs, and the clumps of snow- 
drops lay like patches of forgotten snow in the 
woods and shrubberies. Bright aconite shone 
yellow here and there, and the stiff regiments of 
crocuses massed colour as some army, clad in purple 
and gold. The breath of spring was in the soft air 
of a mild February, and the dikes that ought to 
have been filled according to tradition, lay dry 
and dusty beneath the dappled skies; while that 
warm touch of rosy brown, which lays its living 
hand upon the woods, illuminated afresh the 
blessed words “was dead and is alive again.” 


Lord Wellingborough 267 


“Is spring in the country always as beautiful as 
this?” asked Patricia, but dimly realizing that it is 
never quite so beautiful but once. Summers are 
more beautiful in many ways, and summers come 
over and over again; but the spring, when love 
first flowers above the ground of our experience, 
is different and more delicious and dearer than 
any spring that has been before or will come after. 
It is the spring no longer only of fruits and flowers 
that will fade, but of love which is eternal, and 
which can never really be withered or lost. Many 
a love lies buried in dark earth of unworthiness, 
or misunderstanding, of forgetfulness and impa- 
tience and want of faith, but the life can lie hidden 
through whole winters of our discontent, through 
the hardest winter of all that men call death, but 
it will come back to its own in a new springtime 
in the land that is very far off. 

“ I haven’t had such a holiday as this for years, ” 
said Wellingborough, still flying through the 
rarified atmosphere on wings of wonder. 

“We have walked miles,” answered Patricia 
demurely, “and walking is the best exercise in 
the world. ” 

“ I used not to think it so, ” and he smiled. “ I 
wanted to row, or run, or shoot, or play. Exercise 
must have its object or it degenerates into a tread- 
mill. ” 

“ I don’t think our walks have been much like a 
treadmill. ” 

Jim threw back his head and laughed. 


268 


Patricia 


“More like a Jacob’s ladder,” he suggested. 

“On which we have been going up and down, and 
one end was on the earth, right down in Uncle 
George’s parish.” 

“And the other was not. We haven’t quite 
been to the top yet — Patricia.” 

Lord Wellingborough had never called her by 
her Christian name before, and yet Patricia sud- 
denly felt that he had never called her anything else. 
Real things always glide into our lives so quietly 
and simply that we never hear their coming. 
Directly they are they apparently always have 
been. 

“ I shall never lose my interest in the restoration 
of Muirfield church, ” she said quickly. “ Doesn’t 
the drawing-room meeting seem ages ago?” 

“Of course it does, so much has happened since 
then. ” 

“ Nothing really, ” and she laughed nervously. 

“Nothing that shows. The things which are 
not seen are eternal.” 

“It is strange to think we have become such 
friends so soon.” 

“I don’t think it is a bit strange. Nothing 
that happens which is vital is ever strange — it 
never will be. ” 

“Oh, yes it will! I think that all great happen- 
ings must be strange. ” 

“Wait till you have experienced them, and then 
you’ll know better. It is youth which thinks that 
everything is going to make all the difference. 


Lord Wellingborough 269 


The boy says that when he is a man he will be 
different, but he is not. The girl thinks that when 
she is married all will be different, but it is just the 
same, only seen from another side. The woman 
thinks how different the world will seem when she 
has a child in her arms, but the mother finds it the 
same old familiar world, and can hardly remember 
the week before when her arms were empty. 
And most people are thinking how different death 
will make everything, and how strange the awaken- 
ing will be. I don’t believe it will be a bit strange. 
It is only the mask death wears that, like chil- 
dren, we think is strange — when we see his face we 
shall find it is the face of a Friend. ” 

“I hate the very thought of death,” and Pa- 
tricia gave a little shiver. 

“ You’re frightened of the mask, poor child. 
And that is what thousands are frightened of — 
but it is only an ugly mask after all. When you 
are grown up you won’t be.” 

“ But it is grown-up people who are. ” 

“Not really grown up, Patricia — not grown up 
to the stature of the fulness of Christ. ” 

And then as she was silent, not knowing these 
things, he spoke again. 

“I always love the story of the little boy who was 
so frightened of dying that everything was spoiled 
— till one day he was having the most exquisite 
treat of all, and suddenly the old fear came back 
and he stopped in his joyous happiness, and said, 
1 But I’m terrible feared of dying.’ And then all 


270 


Patricia 


the other children burst out laughing and danced 
round him and said, ‘ But you are dead, you know. 
Dying’s over and done with. ’ And then the boy 
knew what perfect happiness meant. I think so 
many of us are like that boy and will have his 
experience. ” 

“Uncle George doesn’t think it will be a bit like 
that, ” argued Patricia. “ He thinks of Heaven as 
a sort of holy Civil Service, with a terrible entrance 
examination, in which most of us will be plucked. 
Aunt Lucy regards it more as a choir school, run 
on charity lines, for which you only require a 
nomination and a sweet voice, and to be under ten 
years of age in character.” 

“Oh, Patricia! you are delightful! and most 
illuminating! A perfect guide book for the clergy, 
if only they can read your warnings and understand 
your maps.” 

“But they don’t,” laughed Patricia. “I’ve no 
chance in Uncle George’s or Aunt Lucy’s heaven. ” 

“ But perhaps you have in other people’s. You 
might even be essential to some one’s.” 

“Then what do you think Heaven will be like?” 

“Look through your own desires and delights — 
your dreams of happiness and your hopes of 
everything, and then perhaps you’ll get the sort 
of picture which the traveller finds in the way-side 
station of Mt. Blanc. I can’t draw one — nobody 
can. We shall all know better when we’re there. ” 

“But you said it wouldn’t be different and 
strange,” she persisted. 


Lord Wellingborough 271 


“ No more it will in one sense. But things have 
to be different to our imaginings in another way to 
prevent them from being strange.” 

“How do you mean?” 

“ 1 knew a girl who told me that she thought it 
would be so strange and wonderful to be married, 
for she felt that her husband would be like a god. 
She soon found that it was neither strange nor 
wonderful, and that her husband was not in the 
least like a god; but she is an extremely happy 
woman all the same, and has learned the dear 
familiar side of love at home which never entered 
into her imaginings. ” 

“I suppose poor, weary, worn-out folk look 
forward to Heaven as a rest cure. ” 

“We all look forward to what we want. 
It is the work of Heaven that I look forward 
to.” 

“But I thought the work was then supposed to 
be done — ‘ There dawns no Sabbath, no Sabbath is 
o’er’ sort of thing.” 

“Oh, my dear! my dear! How fearfully ignor- 
ant you are!” 

But Patricia forgave his condemnation of her 
ignorance for the sake of his voice when he said 
“my dear.” 

Again it seemed quite natural to them both 
that he should thus address her. 

“ There is a little book I used to learn from when 
I was very small,” he continued, “called Child's 
Guide to Knowledge 


272 


Patricia 


“So did I,” echoed Patricia, “and all I remem- 
ber of it are the three diseases of wheat. ” 

“Blight, mildew, and smut,” he quoted quickly. 
“Yet I know scores of intelligent, clever people 
who take all their religious teaching from no more 
illuminating text-books, and therefore know about 
as much of the spiritual world as Child's Guide can 
tell them of the material, a few absurd, staccato 
facts. It is to me one of the strangest things that 
people who could not live without being intellec- 
tually up-to-date, are content to continue as 
ignorant and old-fashioned spiritually as — as — as 
you are yourself, Patricia.” 

“Don’t scold me, and on your last afternoon, 
too.” 

“I am not going to, for it isn’t your fault. It 
is our fault — our stupid, senseless fault ; so we only 
are to blame.” 

“We? why we?” 

“We parsons, I mean. The reason you don’t 
know your spiritual alphabet is because you have 
never been taught it — and we as a body are re- 
sponsible for that. ” 

“But it seems to me that the whole country is 
riddled with parochial organizations and teachings 
and workings. You can’t get away from them 
unless you lock your doors. ” 

“That is so. But we do not organize our teach- 
ing material, and therefore our learning material 
is wasted.” 

“But the clergy are all good, as you call it. 


Lord Wellingborough 273 

They surely know these things. ” And Patricia’s 
tone was slightly contemptuous. 

"Because people know how to read in words of 
one syllable, or even more, they are not fitted to 
lecture on the higher ’ologies. Yet that is how 
the Church reasons. We all know the story of 
the boy who flew his kite in a fog — by the way, it 
must have been a sea mist blown inland by the 
wind I imagine — and knew the kite was there, 
although he couldn’t see it, because he felt it 
pull. Well, the knowledge that came from that 
pull did not qualify him to teach aeronautics! 
And if he tried to, who would listen?” 

"I see,” said Patricia thoughtfully. 

"Many a curate and many a vicar, too, has felt 
that pull, and so is sure, — but it doesn’t qualify 
him to teach theology all the same. And when 
he does, who is any the wiser?” 

But precious moments were flying, for their 
snatch of eternity was so nearly over that time 
began to count again, and Patricia wanted to talk 
about things nearer and dearer to her than the 
Church. 

"I wish you were not going away,” she said 
softly. 

"I am never going away,” he declared with 
decision, "even though I shall catch the up express 
tomorrow morning.” And then because Patricia 
was a woman and fire was near, she suddenly said : 

" I read your book — that Life you wrote of your 
father.” Lord Wellingborough’s face clouded. 

18 


274 


Patricia 


“ It was put together by me, but it was not really 
written as a Life. I did it to please my mother. 
It served its purpose — but now I would rather for- 
get it, if you please.” 

“ It was not a bit like you. But a book need not 
be part of its author.” 

“Yes, it need. If it be a book at all. It must 
be bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. ” 

“Then would you judge a person wholly from 
their writing? ” and Patricia’s tone was rather faint. 

“What a man writes — really writes, I mean, as 
one counts writing in literature — is from the very 
essence of his being. And therefore base writing 
means hidden if not blatant disease. But you 
needn’t judge people for that — you only know it, 
and are sorry, and wonder whether and how they 
could be cured. ” 

“And avoid them?” and Patricia’s tone was 
bitter. 

“As a friend, perhaps — not as a patient. Why 
does that vex you? Would you, bring infectious 
disease, — and all moral disease is infectious, — into 
your home deliberately, and menace the health 
there?” 

“There is nothing in the world so hard as the 
person who is hall-marked righteous,” she ex- 
claimed with passionate injustice. “You priests 
and Levites are always passing by on the other 
side!” 

Lord Wellingborough looked at her curiously. 
“Not quite always,” he said gently, “though I 


Lord Wellingborough 275 


own much too often. But what is the matter? 
what vexes you so much?” 

“I am not a bit vexed, ” said Patricia angrily, 
“only you are so — so — pulpitty in your views of 
things. Authors write from different motives — 
and some want money, and must write what will 
fetch money.” 

Jim Wellingborough’s mouth tightened. To be 
called “pulpitty” hit him on the raw. He felt 
perhaps he deserved it, and if he did, it hurt. 

“I wasn’t discussing what people must do,” he 
said quietly, driving himself on the curb, “I was 
only thinking what they can’t do. A fine author 
simply can’t write garbage, even if he is willing to. 
It is a simple fact that it is not possible to gather 
grapes of thorns or figs of thistles. And motive, 
as you call it, has nothing whatever to do with it. 
A man can only write what he can write. Could 
you compose an opera or paint a portrait just 
because you wanted money and they would fetch 
it?” 

“No — but if I could paint portraits at all, and 
knew that one of the devil would sell and one of 
Uncle George would not, why, I should paint the 
devil!” 

“Even if it would frighten little children at 
night? Then I am ashamed of you. But all the 
same, you are putting an absurd hypothesis. The 
same person would never paint the devil and Mr. 
Vaughan — but without doing either, you are 
painting yourself much blacker than you are.” 


276 


Patricia 


“I am not,” for Patricia resented the softening 
of his voice, and with a reckless desire to goad him 
further just because she was so angry with herself, 
she added: “And if you will excuse my saying so, 
I think in estimating my character ‘ye take too 
much upon yourselves, ye sons of Levi.’ It is 
only a week since we met. ” 

Lord Wellingborough felt angry, for he was a 
very human man, and had all a man's impatience 
of unreasonableness. Knowing nothing whatever 
of the hidden currents of Patricia's mind, and why 
she was defying that which she really feared, he 
intensely resented her sudden change of front. 
Jim Wellingborough had learned to curb his angry 
words and flames of temper, but he could never 
control that chill of indignation which withered 
all his finer feelings and cramped his nature as with 
a black frost, when someone he cared about ran up 
against his resentment in any unreasonable charge. 
It was not often thus with him, for there were very 
few he cared enough about to stir his anger, and it 
was only when he cared that he could be at his 
worst. The white blight of anger which drove him 
suddenly away from Patricia within the impene- 
trable walls of an active reserve, silenced his tongue 
and changed his very face. It was as if the blinds 
had been drawn down over windows which once 
were smiling and open. And this made Patricia 
angrier still. 

“There is nothing that makes people so im- 
possible as when they deliberately shut their eyes 


Lord Wellingborough 277 

to the truth,’' she said with bitterness, “and that 
is just what all you clergy are so apt to do. ” 

“Or else open our eyes to it,” he suggested 
coldly. 

“And then you wonder when you have no 
influence!” she added scornfully. “Why, of 
course the same person could paint the devil and 
Uncle George if he chose! The same person can 
always do opposite things. It is only the literature 
of the Religious Tract Society that proves other- 
wise.” 

“Opposite, perhaps, but according to scale. 
‘There, but for the Grace of God, goes John Brad- 
ford ’ was said of a big criminal — big enough to be 
condemned to death. But really, Miss Vaughan, 
I don’t think it is much use our talking about these 
things. We have come to a fork in our ways, and 
perhaps we shall not meet again.” And because 
when he said this thing pain gripped the heart of 
Jim Wellingborough, he said it all the more coldly 
and indifferently. 

“Most probably not!” But because the words 
hurt, Patricia also, she, being a woman, could not 
let them stand. “You will not be coming down to 
the Muirfields’ again?” she asked a trifle wistfully. 

“It is ten years since my cousin honoured me 
with an invitation. It will most likely be another 
ten before she does so again. And even if she 
should,” and his tone was stony, “I should prob- 
ably be too busy to accept. ” 

“ I suppose you are always busy ? ” said Patricia, 


27B 


Patricia 


who wanted above everything else to prolong 
the conversation lest he should go. She did not 
care how much they quarrelled, or how horrid 
either of them might be, so long as they were 
together. But the man was anxious now above 
everything to go. The horridness was so distaste- 
ful to him, both in himself and in her, that he was 
in a hurry to go away from it all. 

“Always, ” he replied briefly. “But I am 
afraid I must be saying good-bye. I have some 
important letters to write before the post goes. ” 

“Let us part friends?” she exclaimed im- 
pulsively. But when a man has once been driven 
back within himself he cannot be beckoned out 
again so easily. Jim Wellingborough wanted to be 
friends with Patricia ; he wanted it with a longing 
so fierce that it was actually pain, but he was, by 
reason of his temperament, absolutely incapable of 
responding to her advance. 

“Most certainly,” he answered in a voice cold 
enough to freeze any friendship. 

Patricia looked up blindly as if she had received 
a blow in the face. It had never occurred to her 
as possible that an overture of hers could be 
rebuffed. She shook hands mechanically, and so 
they parted. But of the rent which it made in 
the other’s heart neither was in the least aware. 

“So Lord Wellingborough has gone,” said Aunt 
Lucy regretfully as she poured out tea. 

“And quite time, too,” snapped Maggie, “ne- 


Lord Wellingborough 279 

glecting his parish for no reason. It isn’t as if he 
were on his holiday, which is quite different, and 
in August.” 

1 1 Why August ? ’ ’ asked Patricia. 1 1 That is the 
one month in which a holiday is out of the ques- 
tion. ” 

“The apartments always put up their prices 
for August,” said Agnes, “so it does make it 
rather an impossible month.” 

“A worthy young man!” remarked Uncle 
George, “seeing that, like the young man in 
Scripture, he hath great possessions.” 

“You might make a pun on that if you were 
one of the people who think puns funny. Some- 
thing about worth and worthy, you know.” But 
Patricia’s laugh was hard and mirthless, and her 
cheeks were strangely flushed. 

“Are you well, my love?” asked her aunt 
anxiously. 

“I think I have caught cold.” 

“You look to me feverish,” said Maggie. “I 
daresay it is influenza. There is rather a bad type 
about just now. ” 

“I never have influenza,” exclaimed Patricia. 
“I should consider it going with the multitude to 
do evil.” 

“In my opinion,” repeated her cousin, “you 
have influenza, and if you were to call in the doctor 
I am sure he would say it was. ” 

“Of course he would,” scoffed Patricia. “In- 
fluenza is the faculty’s piece de resistance. It is 


280 


Patricia 


frightfully clever now to have a disease that isn’t 
influenza, or at least that isn’t diagnosed as such. ” 

“You have been hanging about out of doors for 
days,” continued Maggie, “and over- walking 
yourself into the bargain.” 

“Well, my dear, don’t bother your cousin if 
she doesn’t feel well,” said Aunt Lucy. “Shall I 
ask the parish nurse to drop in and take your 
temperature, my love? It is a pity to send for the 
doctor before you know whether it is absolutely 
necessary.” 

“It is nothing but a bit of cold, aunt. I shall 
be all right tomorrow.” 

Maggie’s large red hand pounced upon Patricia’s 
delicate white one. 

“Dry and unhealthy,” she said sternly, “and 
your eyes glitter in a most feverish manner. I 
shouldn’t be surprised if you weren’t really ill in 
the night.” 

But Patricia knew better. Even the cold was 
an imaginary one, conjured up to explain her 
symptoms. 

“But they are quite cool,” she pleaded, laying 
them on her hot forehead, “and hands are hot 
when you are feverish. ” 

“Not in the first stage,” persisted Maggie; “a 
temperature begins with shivering. Your lips 
look bluish, too.” Maggie had firmly made up 
her mind that Patricia should have influenza, 
and it was no use trying to oppose her. 

“I liked Lord Wellingborough,” said Uncle 


Lord Wellingborough 


281 


George, who had never embarked on the side issue 
of his niece’s health, “and I should not wonder, if 
he were not a rural dean some day. ” 

“I understood from the Muirfields that he was 
going to be a Bishop in about ten minutes, and an 
Archbishop the day but one after,” said Patricia. 

Her uncle regarded her reprovingly over the top 
of his spectacles. 

“You should not speak so irreverently of holy 
things, Patricia.” 

“Are you referring to Lord Wellingborough as 
a holy thing, or the Episcopacy generally?” she 
asked. “ If the former, I don’t agree with you. ” 

“ Lord Wellingborough follows a holy calling, and 
is himself in character, I should say, holy also.” 

“Well, I shouldn’t. He has a horrid temper 
and is as hard as nails. ” 

“Would you have him soft?” asked Maggie, and 
then laughed loudly. That was the only kind of 
joke that Maggie ever made. 

“I understood from Canon Crosbie that Lord 
Wellingborough’s church is one of the most 
crowded in London. He must be holy,” contin- 
ued Mr. Vaughan. 

“Or amusing?” suggested Patricia. 

“I should like to hear him preach,” said Agnes 
timidly, “and then you would really know what 
sort of man he was. ” 

“Far from it, my dear,” argued Patricia, 
“preaching is just an art like all the other arts, 
and the preacher is only the conductor, as the 


282 


Patricia 


violinist, or the painter, or the sculptor is, to con- 
vey something that has been revealed to him to 
the people to whom it has not been revealed. ” 
“Yes, my love,” exclaimed an unexpected 
champion in Aunt Lucy, “that is just it. The 
preacher is there to hand on God’s truth which 
has been revealed to him. But to some a bigger 
revelation seems given than to others,” she added 
half sadly, looking at her husband across the 
table, “and so it is not their fault if they cannot 
always preach good and interesting sermons, is it? ” 
“There is something good in every sermon,” 
said Uncle George rather loudly. 

“But I do agree with aunt that a man might 
preach finely and yet be not a bit fine himself. ” 

“I don’t think I quite said that, my dear. But 
I wouldn’t argue, if you have a headache. It may 
be so. ” So Aunt Lucy tried to stroke down all the 
ruffled thoughts that stood on end around her. 

But Patricia felt all the better for the discussion. 
The very mention of Jim Wellingborough’s name 
relieved the tension of her thoughts about him. 
Talk is nearly always a relief to a woman, — just 
as silence is to a man. 

“Hard as nails!” repeated Patricia to herself as 
she lay in bed trying to find a cool bit of pillow 
on which to rest her hot cheek. “He will never, 
never forgive me, when he knows. It is best to 
have quarrelled first, and that will be the end of 
it!” But there she was wrong. There never can 
be an end to the eternal things of which love is one. 


CHAPTER XI 


“off with the old love” 

When Golly came down for Easter, Patricia 
had made up her mind that she would become 
engaged to him without any further delay. The 
ball was fixed, and it was Golly’s intention, as well 
as Patricia’s, that their engagement should be an- 
nounced on that occasion. She felt much more 
eager and less happy about it than she had been 
at Christmas, and Golly’s patience also seemed to 
be wearing a little thin. 

“Remember, your programme is mine,” he said 
authoritatively as they parted at the lych-gate on 
the day before the ball. 

“I’ll keep you one or two,” laughed Patricia, 
“if you’re good.” 

Uncle George was very much harassed as to 
whether he ought to attend the ball or not ; he was 
not sure that he approved of balls, though of 
course Lady Muirfield would never countenance 
anything of which he ought to disapprove; and 
it would seem strange and almost unfriendly, so 
he argued in his mind, if he were not present. On 
the other hand his dress coat was decidedly shiny, 
283 


284 


Patricia 


and really not up to anything more than an 
ordinary dinner, but Aunt Lucy was sure that it 
would never be noticed in such a crowd. Her 
evening dress was old-fashioned though not ex- 
actly shabby, — it had never had enough wear to 
make it that,— but she was perfectly certain nobody 
expected anything else of a clergyman and his wife, 
and for her part, she really could not bear to miss 
such a splendid treat as seeing all the young 
people enjoying themselves, and all the beautiful 
dresses and flowers, and the delicious supper, to 
say nothing of the illuminated gardens, which were 
quite a novelty, as usually balls are in such cold 
weather as to render it unnecessary to trouble 
about anything out-of-doors. But the balmy 
dry spring weather would be quite different, and 
she thought she might take her waterproof and 
goloshes and hide them in some little nook she 
knew of, where she could get them again for her- 
self, without the fuss of the cloak-room ticket, just 
to go out in and see the illuminations by herself. 
She did not reveal this plan to her daughters, 
for she had learned, as have most mothers, how 
strict grown-up daughters can be about quite 
harmless things. So the time comes when the 
mothers in their turn make little secret plots for 
their own enjoyment away from the sharp eyes of 
the children, who used in olden days to be the 
perpetrators of such hidden plots themselves. 

“It seems funny,” said Aunt Lucy, her mind 
running on her own strategy, “but I have lived 


“Off With the Old Love” 


285 


through two obedient ages. When I was a child 
the parents were strict and the children obeyed. 
Now I am old the children are strict and the par- 
ents obey. So it has always been my turn to obey, 
just as it has always been rice pudding time for me. 
Children in my young days ate rice pudding and the 
grown-ups had the sweets — now it is just the other 
way, and the old ones eat the rice pudding. My 
life has been all rice pudding and obedience.” 

“Poor dear!” said Patricia stroking her aunt’s 
hand. 

“No, not poor. It has all, doubtless, been for 
the best, and when you live on rice pudding, a rare 
sweet is such a treat. ” 

“And when you are always obedient a defiant 
fling on your own must be delightful,” suggested 
her niece. 

“That contrast, my love, is an experience which 
no young people in these days can judge of. 
Neither, I think, can many of them find so much 
pleasure in a treat as we old ones do, who have had 
so few of them. Oh! life is full of compensations, 
and packed with happiness,” and Aunt Lucy’s 
face beamed with gratitude. 

“I can’t bear balls,” remarked Maggie sternly. 
“ There is no pleasure to my mind in seeing a lot of 
people making fools of themselves, and getting 
overheated into the bargain. If it wasn’t that 
Lady Muirfield expects me to be present, and all 
the village would think it so queer if I were not, 
nothing would induce me to go. ” 


286 


Patricia 


“And there is the supper,” suggested Patricia 
guilelessly — “I always think it is such a comfort 
that if we can’t be happy at a party we can always 
be greedy; and pure greediness is a real satis- 
faction!” 

“You may find it so,” replied Maggie, “but I 
am thankful to say mine is not one of those coarse 
natures that glory in excess.” 

“ I adore excess, ” said her cousin calmly. “No- 
thing is really enjoyable that you have to take in 
moderation. Don’t you remember the joy at 
nursery tea of filling your mouth quite full, or of 
eating apples in the garden till your cheeks bulged 
out and you were almost incapable of biting or 
swallowing? Afternoon teas and fruit at dessert 
never taste in the least like that now. And that is 
why I like bathing so much better than washing. 
There is so much more water in the sea than you 
need. The excess makes it a delight — the duty of 
washing in an adequate bath is a bore. ” 

“I consider such a simile most indelicate,” re- 
plied Maggie, “and, besides, cleanliness is next to 
godliness and therefore you ought not to find it a 
bore.” 

“But I am afraid I should find godliness a bore, 
too.” 

“No, my love, you wouldn’t, if you really found 
it, ” chimed in her aunt. “It is only looking for it 
and not finding it that is a bore. ” 

“I don’t look for it, I am afraid, either. I only 
look at it whenever I see you, dear aunt.” 


“ Off With the Old Love” 


287 


“Oh! Patricia! don’t say such things! Me, 
indeed! when you can look at your uncle day by 
day.” 

“ I would rather look at you, ” said Patricia, and 
her aunt thought it best to change the subject. 

“Let us have a bit of chat about our clothes, 
girls,” she suggested, and instantly peace was 
restored in the charmed circle of a common in- 
terest. “Not that I think people ought to think 
too much about dress,” added Aunt Lucy with 
a sop to conscience, “but on such a great occasion 
as the eve of dear Lady Muirfield’s ball I am sure 
it is quite excusable to do so. ” 

“Dear aunt would find an excuse for the devil 
himself.” 

“ Oh ! no, my love! But still we must remember 
that people often seem worse than they are. ” 

“If Aunt Lucy kept the door of Heaven she’d 
let every one in — there would be no entrance 
examinations then. And to some of us she would 
give a latch key in case we found it a bit dull and 
wanted to slip out again — shouldn’t you?” and 
Patricia clasped her aunt round the waist and 
hustled her into an impromptu polka. 

“You shock me terribly, my dear,” gasped 
Aunt Lucy, seizing her dislodged headgear, “but 
you don’t mean half you say. ” 

“I do,” argued Patricia. “I always mean it, 
and that is why no one believes me. If you want 
to deceive people tell them the naked truth. It 
never fails. ” 


288 


Patricia 


“The dress that Patricia gave me at Christmas 
will be simply perfect!” exclaimed Agnes ecstati- 
cally, “so fashionable and so becoming. I do not 
feel the same person when I put it on. ” 

“I am so glad,” said her cousin. “For clothes 
that make you feel a different person are such a 
comfort. I get so sick of myself in a coat and skirt, 
and then I put on a ball gown and it is such a relief 
to find someone else altogether in yourself. I do 
adore change, even if it is only a change of dress. ” 

“I cannot endure change,” said Aunt Lucy, 
“but I suppose that is because I am getting old. 
When you are young the happiest days are those 
on which something happens. But when youth 
is over, the happiest days are those when nothing 
happens.” 

“But isn’t that stage dreadfully dull, aunt? I 
should die of dulness if I thought things might not 
happen.” 

“That is because you have not entered into your 
kingdom, my love. And all women, till they have, 
are looking out for that one great happening.” 

“ Pack of nonsense, mother! You seem to think 
marriage is the end-all and aim-all of a woman’s 
life, which in these days it most certainly is not.” 
So Maggie settled the question. But Agnes gave 
a little squeeze to her mother’s hand under the 
tablecloth. 

There was something intensely exhilarating to 
Patricia in the atmosphere of a ballroom; a kind 
of native heath sensation for which she had been 


“Off With the Old Love” 


289 


unconsciously homesick ever since she left Lon- 
don, and a ball at which she expected something 
to happen was the ball which Patricia loved best 
of all. The one at Lynfield Park was by no means 
the first of that kind which she had enjoyed. 

The Vaughans were, according to custom, 
among the very first arrivals. Maggie wore a hard 
blue dress which she called sky blue, and which 
was trimmed with inexpensive white lace. Her 
stout, strong arms looked fiercely red in contrast, 
and her best new shoes actually creaked. 

“No one but Maggie, ” thought Patricia, “could 
possibly have procured ball shoes which would 
creak, however much they had wanted them.” 

“It will never be noticed with the music,” said 
her cousin cheerfully, and Patricia was bound to 
admit she was right. Even Maggie’s Sunday 
boots would have been shouted down by a band. 

Agnes looked remarkably well under Patricia’s 
skilful manipulation. The new amethyst gown 
was soft and graceful and unnoticeable, but it 
made its wearer noticeable and that is the true 
function of the best-mannered dress. The happy 
light of success deepened the afterglow of youth, 
instead of leaving Agnes where she usually was in 
the twilight, and a dainty amethyst necklace of 
her cousin’s, with a bunch of violets in her belt, 
were the only ornaments that Patricia would 
allow. 

Aunt Lucy’s evening dress was brown benga- 
line, but Patricia produced a piece of lovely lace 


19 


2 90 


Patricia 


with which she draped the bodice, though Aunt 
Lucy felt very nervous at the responsibility of 
wearing it. 

“Oh! my dear! if I should drop anything on to 
it at supper — and you know how accidents will 
happen — I shall be terribly upset!” 

“You needn’t worry, dear. The lace really 
wants cleaning, so it won’t matter a bit if a whole 
truffle or a stuffed quail is hidden in its folds.” 

Patricia herself looked perfectly charming in 
grey. 

“It is more like smoke than a proper dress,” 
said Maggie sternly, “and cost I don’t know what, 
I’ll be bound.” 

But in the blaze of light and colour which filled 
the ball-room many eyes followed the attraction 
of the slim, moonlight girl, whose dusky hair and 
clear pale cheeks showed up in a wonderful way 
the starry brightness of her blue-black eyes. 

The ball was in full swing and all the available 
girls’ programmes were full, when a belated con- 
tingent from some distant barracks, whose motor 
had punctured on the way, arrived, to Lady Muir- 
field’s great consternation. 

“What shall we do with them, Godolphin?” 
she asked helplessly, as he and Patricia came out 
of the ball-room to assist in the emergency. 

“Fools!” said Golly, “to let their motor punc- 
ture! Must be a badly brought up one ! But now 
they’ve come forty miles they must have a hop 
somehow.” 


“ Off With the Old Love 11 


2 91 


“I’ll dance with them,” said Patricia. 

“Will you?” replied her partner ominously. 

“I know!” she exclaimed with a flash of in- 
spiration, “my cousin Agnes is sure to have lots of 
dances left, and she is looking quite smart to- 
night. Go and introduce them to her, Golly, 
and it will be the time of her life. Oh! I am 
glad they were late! It will be such fun for 
Agnes — and I wanted her to enjoy herself so 
much. ” 

“Right oh! And you shall just finish this with 
the best of them, while I go and fix up the 
others. Brilliant thought! the unappropriated 
Agnes!” 

“Don’t be horrid,” she reproved. 

“I’m not. I’m self-sacrificing up to a martyr’s 
level!” 

“For half a valse, forsooth ! Now introduce me, 
and remember, if you let Agnes realize the truth, 
I’ll never forgive you. ” 

It was indeed, as Patricia said, the time of 
Agnes’s life. Smart young subalterns fought over 
her programme, and whirled her into a state of 
ecstasy such as she had never dreamed of before. 
Her pretty frock had filled her cup of joy half full, 
and then had come the bitter drop when she saw 
other girls the centre of a group of would-be 
partners, and she stood in the suburbs. But now 
that bitter was made sweet. Far better partners 
claimed her hand, and it never struck her simple 
soul that there was any explanation of her unpre- 


292 


Patricia 


cedented good fortune. Her happy face grew 
young with this happiness, and she laughed and 
listened till the soldier boys were charmed and 
thought her “no end of a good sort. ” She neither 
lost her coolness nor her breath, even though her 
partners worked her so hard — and when young 
girls were rather too hot and dishevelled in the 
wild dances of these modem days, Agnes kept her 
ladylike look, with only a becoming flush of 
colour in her usually pale cheeks, and a neat, well- 
groomed head of hair which Patricia had made 
sure and safe, as is best with those who have 
not any longer the fluffy softness of extreme 
youth. 

And Agnes confided her enjoyment to the 
subalterns, and thanked them so gratefully for 
dancing with her that they felt quite pleased with 
themselves. And one a little older than the rest 
looked into her eyes, and flirted furiously with her, 
and took her into supper, until Agnes felt she was 
indeed drinking deep of the wine of this world's 
wildest dissipation, and the flavour, to a palate 
accustomed to milk and water, was both intoxi- 
cating and delightful beyond compare. 

“Are you coming to our steeple-chases next 
week?” asked the soldier confidentially as they 
supped together, and Agnes's heart beat fast. 
Truly the pleasure of this world had an entrancing 
taste to the demure daughter of the old-fashioned 
rectory. 

“I am afraid not,” she said wistfully, and then 


“Off With the Old Love” 


293 


she flushed up with sudden shame, for had not 
she been always taught that steeple-chases were 
wicked? 

“I never go to races, ” she said bravely, “my 
father does not approve of them. ” 

“Some people don’t,” said the young man, 
with the easy good-breeding of his type. 

“My father is a clergyman, you know.” 

“Ah! that accounts for it. But I wish you were 
coming all the same. I should like you to see me 
ride in them. ” 

Agnes hoped it was not very wicked of her to 
want so much to see him do so. 

“ I would go if you wanted me to, ” she said in a 
sudden burst of recklessness, “even though I am 
not allowed.” 

“Allowed!” exclaimed Captain Warburton. 
“Are there still such women left? I do congratu- 
late you most awfully.” 

“Why?” gasped Agnes. 

“At not being emancipated. It is splendid and 
original, and delightful of you! But do come, ” he 
continued coaxingly. “I know I shall win if you 
do.” 

“Do you think I dare?” she asked with a little 
catch in her voice. 

“I am sure you could. It is quite near the 
station and no one would ever know, except our- 
selves — just you and me.” 

“But I thought races were wicked.” 

“Flat racing may be — but not steeple-chasing, 


294 


Patricia 


and when a friend is riding. Oh! it’s quite dif- 
ferent!” So pleaded the tempter. 

“It’s not like the Derby or the Oaks or any of 
those really wrong things?” 

“Rather not!” he assured her truthfully. 
“There’s a lot of luck in steeple- chasing and some 
people bring luck. I know you would. So just 
think what you would feel if you didn’t come, and 
I had a spill. It might be the end of me, you 
know. ” 

“Oh! that would be terrible,” cried Agnes, 
clasping her long thin hands in agitation. “I 
should never forgive myself, never!” 

“Then come. Do come. And I shall be sure to 
win!” 

“When is it?” she asked faintly. 

“Next Monday. Couldn’t you give me some of 
your violets as a pledge?” 

Agnes hastily undid her bunch and handed him 
half of them. 

“I wish I hadn’t been brought up to believe so 
many things are wrong,” she said sadly. “There 
is my cousin, Patricia, that beautiful girl in grey, 
who doesn’t think anything you like is wrong, and 
it makes life much simpler.” 

“I don’t believe anything you like is wrong,” 
he said quickly, “at least I am sure that anything 
you like could not possibly be. ” 

“Oh! what a comforting theory! But is not 
that being a law unto yourself?” 

“And a jolly good law, too! But, I say, it is an 


11 Off With the Old Love” 


295 


awful mistake to get thinking things are wrong. 
IVe got an aunt who makes it a matter of con- 
science whether the fowls are roast or boiled, don’t 
you know. And most things are like fowls, it 
doesn’t really matter a hang provided you like 
them better either way. ” 

“ I thought everything was either right or wrong. 
But I see the cooking of a fowl couldn’t be.” 

“Neither can heaps of other things. You take 
my word for it. I know a lot of the world. ” 
Agnes regarded him with admiring eyes, and 
Dick Warburton began to enjoy his exposition of 
the moral law. His opinion thereon was not usu- 
ally listened to with much respect, and it was a 
nice change to be really influencing a woman so 
much older than himself. He began to think he 
must have a talent that way. 

“Have some lobster?” he asked suddenly, 
“that is if you don’t think it wrong.” 

“But I do, ” confessed Agnes with a little laugh. 
“ My mother has never allowed me to eat lobster. ” 
“Then hurrah for lobster and freedom!” and 
he helped her himself. “And you’ll find that it 
tastes nice, and isn’t really a bit wrong after all. 
Have some champagne too?” 

But here Agnes was firm. 

“Oh no! I am a teetotaller, and wear a blue 
ribbon usually. I wear a lot of bits of ribbon as a 
rule — blue for teetotalism, and mauve for modera- 
tion, and white for purity, and tricoloured for 
loyalty.” 


296 


Patricia 


“Don’t you feel like a patchwork quilt, when 
you’ve got them all on?” 

“How funny you are!” and she laughed de- 
lightedly. Captain Warburton began to think 
he was witty, as well as wise. A most agreeable 
sensation and with all the charm of novelty. For 
his regiment did not regard him as either. 

“It has been a jolly supper!” he said apprecia- 
tively as they drifted back into the ball-room. 
He was not thinking at all about how nice she was, 
but how much nicer he himself was than even he 
had previously imagined, and that thought always 
makes for enjoyment. The supper also had been 
extraordinarily nice, and he was very hungry and 
thirsty. 

“Remember my luck on Monday is in your 
hands,” he whispered wickedly, as one of the 
subalterns claimed her. 

Patricia and Golly were sitting out in the 
loneliest comer of the great conservatory, and she 
was beginning to feel very nervous. It is when the 
expected happens that we lose our nerve, when we 
try to say what we have made up our minds to say 
beforehand that our hearts beat, and Patricia had 
often rehearsed this moment. 

“I feel just like the Irishman who said that he 
should adore the winter if it would only come in the 
middle of the summer,” said Golly, devouring her 
with rapturous eyes; “you look just like a hoar 
frost by moonlight in the middle of blazing sum- 
mer noonday. All the hot, red-faced people make 


“ Off With the Old Love” 


297 


me thirsty, but you are so thirst-quenching, 
Patricia. And, like the Irishman, I adore you! 
You know I do. ” 

“It is time for the next dance,” said Patricia 
falteringly. 

“Let’s sit it out. You know why. Do listen 
to me now — darling! I’ve waited such a hell of a 
time, and now I can’t wait another minute!” 

“You needn’t swear,” said Patricia with a ner- 
vous little laugh. 

“I never know whether you care of not,” said 
Golly simply, “and this up and down work is 
pretty killing. It rags a fellow more than you 
know.” Anything less like a rag than Golly in 
his well-groomed, healthy youth and good looks, 
it would have been difficult to imagine. 

“But, you know how awfully I love you.” He 
went on, and there was a boyish quiver in his 
voice: “I’m no hand at saying things properly, 
but you know — you know, Patricia, how frightfully 
I care. For Heaven’s sake, don’t disappoint me — 
but say yes!” 

But as Patricia felt his hand upon hers and knew 
the moment had come when she had decided 
beyond all appeal to pledge herself to Golly, a 
sudden flash revealed to her that however much 
she might mean or want to she simply could not — 
and the reason why was because she really loved 
another man. 

“No, no!” she cried in quick pain, and more to 
herself than to the boy beside her. And then as 


298 


Patricia 


the bright colour faded from his honest face she 
continued excitedly : 

“ Oh , Golly ! I meant to ! I meant to ! ” 

“Then why don’t you? Quick, tell me! Tell 
me it is all a mistake that you won’t. ” 

“I can’t! Oh, I can’t! But I would if I could. 
I didn’t know I couldn’t till just this minute — or I 
would never have come! Oh, Golly, can’t you un- 
derstand?” and there was a sharp break of anguish 
in her voice. 

“By God, I can’t!” said Golly roughly, and his 
face set into sullen lines. “ You’ve played with me 
too long!” 

The latent motherhood broke out in the girl’s 
heart, and she felt that Golly was young, and 
unhappy, and must be comforted. 

“Don’t be cross, dear,” she said gently, “for I 
am quite as wretched as you. I wanted so much 
to get engaged to you, Golly, and I thought it 
would be lovely and we would have such fun.” 

“We would — we will!” he exclaimed with 
quickly reviving hope, but Patricia shook her 
head. 

“But then I didn’t know what I know now. I 
hate to say it, Golly, for I am proud, and it is 
simply awful for a woman to own to such a thing, 
but I can never marry you because I care for 
somebody else. ” 

“Damn him!” muttered Golly. 

“You needn’t blame him, for he knows nothing 
at all about it. That is the awful part for me. ” 


“Off With the Old Love” 


299 


“ Don’t talk such rubbish! You’re not the sort 
of girl to care for any man unless he has made love 
to you — and you know you’re telling me lies. ” 

“ I am not, Golly, indeed I’m not. Of course we 
philandered, and that is how I got to care — but I 
know he’ll never marry me. We’ve quarrelled 
now, and if we ever made it up we should quarrel 
much, much worse again.” 

“But he wouldn’t have quarrelled unless he’d 
cared,” said Golly wisely. 

“Oh! I can’t explain,” said Patricia, “but there 
is something that will always prevent his marrying 
me — and the more he wanted to the more it would 
prevent it. ” 

“Is the brute married already?” 

“No, it is not that. It is all what Aunt Lucy 
would call ‘quite nice,’” and she gave a pathetic 
little laugh, “but it is hopeless for you and for me. 
Forgive me, Golly, I never meant to hurt you, and 
it is miserable altogether.” 

“Are you sure you care for him, Patricia? Care 
enough to spoil my life, and probably your own, 
too?” 

“Oh Golly! I wish, I wish I didn’t! But no- 
thing can help, because I know I do. I didn’t 
know there was such a thing as that awful over- 
mastering kind of feeling that is above and beyond 
all our wishes and plans and hopes — and I am 
frightened of it— frightened of something in my- 
self. Oh Golly! can’t you help?” 

“I could if you’d let me, but you won’t,” and 


300 


Patricia 


Golly drew the back of his hand boyishly across 
his eyes. “So there’s nothing for it,” he added 
gruffly to hide the tremor in his voice. 

“ Don’t hate me,” she said weakly. “ I couldn’t 
help it.” 

“ If you say so, I suppose you couldn’t. Shall we 
go back now? I can’t stand much more of this.” 

“ Nor I,” said Patricia. But she would have 
gladly gone on standing it for the rest of the 
evening if Golly had let her, only she did not know 
this. The dramatic was so fully developed in 
Patricia that she could look on and almost enjoy 
her own misery. But no man was ever made that 
way. 

So like the two well-bred plucky young people 
they were by race and training, they went back 
into the ball-room, and smiled, and talked, and 
performed their social duties with the heroism 
which is often to be found in society, but never 
seen there, because no one ever dreams of looking 
for it in such an unlikely place, and amid so much 
that is palpably not heroic. But veins of gold run 
through many a layer of life’s crust, only it re- 
quires an expert to find them. 

When the ball was over, and the tired hostess 
was bidding her eldest son goodnight, she lovingly 
whispered, “Am I to congratulate you, my dear? 
I saw that you and Patricia both danced and sat 
out together a great deal. She looked beautiful,” 
added Lady Muirfield with a noble clutch at 
Grace. Golly shook off her hand roughly and 


“ Off With the Old Love” 


301 


6poke roughly — a man can never bear even the 
ten derest touch on the raw. 

“That’s all over, ” he grunted. “ She won’t have 
me!” and he dashed upstairs three steps at a time. 

His mother stood rigid with the shock; until 
indignation restored animation. She had been 
furious with Patricia for encouraging her son’s 
attentions, and now she was still more furious 
with her for refusing them. Besides, it was a 
slight on the heir of the house of Muirfield which 
was unimaginable at the hands of the rector’s 
niece. Not one gleam of satisfaction at her son’s 
salvation from so unsuitable a marriage crossed 
her mind ; for when their children are hurt, mothers 
cannot forgive the offending cause, even if it be 
desirable, or, in the case of some others than 
Golly, possibly deserved. There was a stately 
Bishop whom Lady Muirfield had steadfastly de- 
tested in the days of his head-mastership for a 
similar reason, and he was unforgiven still. 

“Oh! how I enjoyed myself!” exclaimed Aunt 
Lucy as she poured out tepid coffee and ate con- 
gealed bacon next morning. “Wasn’t it all 
beautiful, girls?” 

“It was glorious,” said Agnes softly, and then 
she turned crimson to the roots of her hair. 

“You look a little flushed, dear,” said her 
mother anxiously. “An indigestible supper, no 
doubt.” 

“Yes, I had lobster,” said Agnes, glad to hide 
her blushes behind so simple a cause. 


302 


Patricia 


“And what is the good of a real treat if you 
can’t kick over the traces a little?” laughed Aunt 
Lucy, as she remembered how she had given 
Maggie the slip and walked round the gardens in 
her old waterproof over a Shetland shawl. 

Agnes joined in the laugh with thrilling con- 
sciousness. Perhaps it would not be so wicked to 
go to the steeple-chases after all. It could not be 
if mother said so. And by twelve o’clock that day 
Agnes had reasoned herself into the belief that 
she was actually going — that is if she did so — 
with the maternal sanction: and by evening it 
had come to — by her mother’s express advice. 

“You look a bit off colour, Patricia,” said 
Maggie. “Didn’t your young man propose after 
all? I quite expected to have to congratulate you 
today.” 

“Yes, he proposed all right,” replied Patricia 
coldly, “but I didn’t accept him, as you would put 
it.” 

“You refused him!” shrieked Maggie, and even 
Aunt Lucy joined in the cry. 

“But I understood, my dear, that you were go- 
ing to have him. ” 

“So did I,” said Patricia wearily. 

“Then why didn’t you?” continued Maggie 
sternly. 

“I found I couldn’t — that is all.” 

“Pack of rubbish!” ejaculated her cousin, “and 
the heir to a peerage and so rich. Much too good 
for you in my opinion. ” 


“ Off With the Old Love” 


303 


“And in mine, ” said Patricia slowly. 

“Mercy on us!” exclaimed Maggie. “Aren’t 
you well?” 

“Don’t bother her, my dear,” said Aunt Lucy 
kindly, but Uncle George had to have his say. 

“I am extremely displeased,” said the rector 
judicially, “at any one from my house playing fast 
and loose w T ith any young man. But in the case 
of Lord Muirfield’s son it appears to me to be quite 
unpardonable. I would not have had the Muir- 
fields vexed for the world. ” 

“They won’t be,” said Patricia, “if that is 
what troubles you, Uncle George. Lady Muirfield 
always hated the idea of me as a daughter-in-law. ” 

“But I should have preferred the prohibition 
to have come from her and not from you,” con- 
tinued the rector. 

“She could hardly have answered for me in a 
case like that. ” 

“Not in these days, perhaps. But when I was 
young children obeyed their parents.” 

“But not their possible husband’s parents, 
surely, Uncle George?” 

“That, Patricia, is a quibble and ill-placed. I 
am extremely displeased.” 

“Oh, dear! what an upset!” said Aunt Lucy as 
her husband retired into his study. “And I am so 
afraid it will give your uncle indigestion. That 
bit of ham that was grilled for him required every 
possible help in the way of cheerfulness and exer- 
cise as well as gastric juices. And his sermon isn’t 


304 


Patricia 


finished either. I do wish, my love, that you 
could have been happily engaged by now, and all 
the congratulations and excitement pouring in. ” 

“So do I, Aunt Lucy. Only I really couldn’t.” 

“Very well, my dear. Far be it from me to add 
to the upset in the way of vain regrets. Only are 
you quite sure of your own mind, Patricia?” 

“Perfectly,” said her niece sadly. And then 
Aunt Lucy kissed her, and, what was a tenderer 
touch still, she sent Maggie out to feed the fowls, 
which for once she said she had not time to do 
herself that morning. 

“Some day, dear aunt, I’ll tell you why,” 
whispered Patricia, leaning her tired head against 
Aunt Lucy’s hospitable shoulder, “but not just 
yet. I — I cannot bear it, or any more talk 
today.” 

On Monday Agnes felt like a criminal as she 
started off down the station road, but to any one 
of Agnes’s type there was certainly the thrill of the 
unknown in such a feeling. She had thought and 
dreamed of Captain Warburton’s fascinations ever 
since the ball, and she had arrived at the exciting 
conclusion that it was to her sacrifice of opinions 
and traditions that the gallant soldier would owe 
his life in the fearful danger of riding in a steeple- 
chase. After she had thus saved him, and won 
thereby from him a whole heart’s devotion and a 
whole life’s dedication, then she resolved to repent 
of her wickedness and be forgiven and engaged 
simultaneously. A most romantic programme. 


44 Off With the Old Love” 


305 


And the sweet sunshine of the mild April day 
seemed a heaven-sent omen of such a satisfactory 
conclusion to her great and reckless adventure. 

Agnes had been very much harassed as to 
whether she ought to wear her Sunday hat on a 
racecourse. It seemed incongruous somehow, and 
yet she was a woman and wanted to look her 
best. She wished she could have asked Patricia’s 
advice, but she was dreadfully afraid of any one’s 
guessing her secret ; though as a matter of fact such 
a guess would never have entered into any of her 
relations’ heads. Her furs also looked a little 
mangey after the winter’s wear, so it was fortunate 
it was so warm as to render them out of the 
question. After much anxious deliberation she 
came to the conclusion that the Sunday hat could 
not be so desecrated, but she would split the 
difference by wearing her Sunday veil on her 
everyday felt hat, which she had never dreamed 
of doing until she saw Patricia, who seemed to 
stamp it as quite a smart thing to do. She took 
her waterproof because she wore her best coat and 
skirt and it was April — though a less showery- 
looking day could not have been imagined. And 
so she stole away, unperceived as far as the rectory 
was concerned, but not as far as the village was. 
No one could ever steal away from the omniscience 
of Lynfield village, nor from the vantage point of 
the Westons’ breakfast-room window. 

“There goes Miss Agnes, ” said the miller’s wife, 
“and dressed a bit funny, too. Not quite Sunday 


3°6 


Patricia 


and not quite week-day. I don’t know what to 
make of her. ” 

“Miss Patricia has introduced a lot of new 
ways,” replied her daughter, “and Miss Agnes 
seems to take to them more than the others.” 

“Well, you couldn’t expect the rector and Mrs. 
Vaughan to take up new ways after getting on for 
forty years in Lynfield. And Miss Maggie is one 
that would always set herself against things that 
she hadn’t first started.” 

“I should like to be like Miss Patricia,” said 
Molly Weston wistfully. 

“Well, you never will, my dear, so it is no use 
making a trouble of that. And you’d look all 
wrong and unsuitable if you were. But never you 
mind, Molly, you look nice enough to satisfy any 
girl in a clean pink print and your sunbonnet. ” 

“But, mother, I w r ant fashionable clothes. I 
am sure I should be happier if you’d let me have 
them.” 

“No, my dear, you wouldn’t, because shoddy 
is never worth having. And those who pretend 
to be something they are not are only shoddy. 
You’d make a rubbishy kind of young lady to look 
at, but you make a sweet miller’s daughter, my 
dear — and your mother is not the only person that 
thinks so.” 

“Well, I wonder where Miss Agnes is going?” 
said Molly, changing the subject with a half smile. 

“I can’t quite put a name to it, but I expect 
your father will be able to, when he comes in from 


“ Off With the Old Love” 


307 


the mill. It isn’t the usual train for the rectory- 
people to catch. But your father is bound to 
know. He always does know what folks in this 
village are doing. It comes of having looked out 
of this window for so long. ” 

“But you have, too, mother for over twenty 
years.” 

“I wasn’t bom to this window as he was. I 
came from down-street, you know, where my 
mother had the old ivy-covered house where your 
uncle lives now. And there were no windows 
there except into the garden. And when your 
grandfather was alive we lived on the other side 
of the river. He had a beautiful farm. ” 

“But I do wonder where Miss Agnes is going,” 
persisted her daughter, who knew her maternal 
family’s vicissitudes by heart. 

“Well, wait till your father comes in.” 

That was the final court of appeal. 

The racecourse was a great deal bigger than 
Agnes had expected, and the people were so scat- 
tered that she began to feel very much alone. 
There were such a lot of strangers and no sign of 
Captain Warburton. She plucked up courage 
to ask where the officers were likely to be, and 
the rude laugh of her informer made her suddenly 
very unhappy, though she didn’t know why. 

She found her way at last to the place where the 
motors were standing, and smart ladies were talk- 
ing to more men than Agnes had imagined could 


308 


Patricia 


be connected with the officering of the British 
Army. But none of them she knew. She was so 
tired after her long walk that she longed for a 
seat, but no one offered her one. She was so 
hungry that she felt weak and limp, but there was 
nothing to eat until the luncheon baskets were 
unpacked and then no one invited her to have any. 
The sun, too, was hot and the air soft and relaxing 
as in the first melting moments of spring, and her 
waterproof was heavy. 

Every now and then there was a rush and rustle 
of interest and Agnes saw far-away horses which 
looked like toys. 

It all grew misty and confused as she stood 
patiently waiting and longing for her cavalier to 
come. That he would do so she never dreamed of 
doubting. 

Suddenly her heart gave a wild bound, for the 
face she had been looking for emerged from the 
crowd and Captain Warburton strolled up to a 
packed motor. 

“Oh, Dick! what bad luck!” cried some one, 
and she heard her hero answer : 

“ Rotten race ! Never rode so badly in my life. ” 

“Never mind, have some lunch to buck you 
up.” 

“Rather! Come on. I’ve got a table near the 
tent” — and as the gay party walked away they 
almost brushed against Agnes standing still and 
cold and faint, — for Dick Warburton had looked 
at her, and seen her, but no recognition had 


-Off With the Old Love” 


309 


dawned in his eyes. This was just because the 
dowdy middle-aged woman in the crowd conveyed 
to him no similarity to any one that he knew. And 
besides, he had completely forgotten the incidents 
of the Muirfields’ ball — his mind had been so full 
of the races since. But to Agnes it seemed as if he 
deliberately cut her, and the iron entered into her 
soul. She turned and walked slowly away. Her 
cheeks were burning and her mouth parched. She 
forgot how tired she was, and that she had had no 
dinner. She walked straight to the station, and 
then, after a brief wait, a friendly train took pity 
on her and carried her home for a very small 
remuneration. 

“Here’s Miss Agnes coming back again,” said 
the miller, who was enjoying a peaceful pipe, 
“and fine and fagged she looks, eh ! Ask her in for 
a cup of tea, mother. ” 

The window-sash was promptly pulled up and 
the invitation given. 

“You are very kind,” said Agnes stonily, “but 
I am not feeling very well today and I think I 
will get home. ” 

“ Spring days are a bit trying, ” said the miller — 
but to his wife he afterwards expressed the 
opinion that she looked as if she had seen a ghost, 
though there was no such thing in Lynfield to his 
knowledge — and what the miller did not know 
about Lynfield most certainly was not worth 
knowing. 

As Agnes dragged up the rectory terrace steps 


3io 


Patricia 


she felt a great longing for the comfort of forty 
years ago, when she took all her childish faults and 
troubles straight to the boundless comfort of her 
mother’s arms. For all the discipline of the rectory 
had been exercised by the rector, and the children 
had often hidden from his righteous wrath behind 
the unfailing shelter of their mother’s understand- 
ing and sympathy. Agnes had a sort of idea in 
her mind that God was a kind of offended Rector, 
and that she had wickedly broken one of His 
express rules. She remembered her father’s quot- 
ing in those grim long-ago moments in the study, 
where justice was administered, that “the way 
of the transgressors is hard” — and such indeed she 
now felt it to be. But she was too old to run cry- 
ing to her mother, as she would have done in those 
happy old days, and yet her heart was sore, not 
only with the pain of remorse but with the sting of 
slight and disappointment. Agnes’s trouble was a 
very young one in spite of her years. It had all the 
hopeless finality of the sorrows of the young. 

“What ever is the matter, my dear? ” exclaimed 
Aunt Lucy, who just then opened the front door, 
and at the same time the flood gates of poor 
Agnes’s reservoir of grief gave way. 

“Is anybody hurt?” implored the rector’s wife 
in acute anxiety. 

“No, no one! It is only that I am so silly and 
upset,” sobbed Agnes. And then as her mother 
drew her unresistingly into the empty dining- 
room, and clasped the faded middle-aged woman 


“ Off With the Old Love” 


3ii 

in her arms with all the love and tenderness 
which makes her children ever young and helpless 
in their mother’s eyes, Agnes burst forth in 
anguish : 

“Oh, mother! I have done something so 
wicked!” 

Mrs. Vaughan’s face paled. Real, tangible 
wickedness seemed to her so far away from the 
rectory and her own dear ones. Of course they 
were all sinners, with the reservation in her own 
mind on behalf of the rector, and of whom she 
humbly regarded herself as chief; but wickedness 
suggested something quite different, and she was 
terribly afraid of what Agnes had to tell. No such 
fear, however, did she allow to stem the confidence 
which is so dear to mother hearts. 

“What is it, my darling?” she whispered lov- 
ingly, drawing her daughter’s head against her 
breast just as she used to do when the children 
were in trouble. And Agnes in spite of her forty- 
odd years felt the old comfort of her mother’s arms, 
and sobbed out the whole incoherent story, which 
brought the greatest possible relief to Mrs. 
Vaughan’s anxious heart. 

“Never mind, my dear,” she crooned over her, 
“and I am sure you meant well all the time. I 
believe I should have gone myself if I had thought 
it might have saved the young man from an ac- 
cident — of course if I hadn’t been married to 
your father, I mean.” 

Agnes’s tears grew fewer and she squeezed her 


312 


Patricia 


mother’s hand till it hurt, but such pain is sweet 
to mothers. 

“And I wouldn’t think about it any more,” 
Mrs. Vaughan went on in a soothing tone. “For 
now I know all about it I can take the burden off 
you, my dear. And I don’t believe Captain War- 
burton recognized you — because people look so 
different in hats and veils to what they do in a 
grand ball gown, such as yours was. Nobody 
would have guessed you were the same person, and 
he may be a little short-sighted. So many people 
are nowadays. And I expect he missed you, and 
that was why he was riding so badly. ” 

“He didn’t look as if he missed me,” sighed 
Agnes. 

“Men don’t show their feelings, dear. It’s their 
nature not to, and they are all alike. They show 
less than we do, but things go deep with them — 
deeper sometimes than with us. Cheer up, my 
darling. It is all right again, and mother will get 
you a cup of tea and a boiled egg. I expect it is 
being weak for food that has made you feel so 
upset. For there is really nothing to be upset 
about. It is such a natural accident not to recog- 
nize any one who is standing with their back to the 
sun — and I am quite sure no young man would 
ever cut you, my dear — much less one who met 
and admired you so much at the Muirfields’ ball. 
I expect he is thinking you had forgotten him.” 
So Aunt Lucy ministered to and healed her daugh- 
ter’s wounded pride and sore soul. 


“ Off With the Old Love” 


3i3 


“Oh, mother, you are comforting!” said Agnes. 
“What else should mothers be? Even old as I 
am, I hunger sometimes for a bit of mother’s com- 
forting, but we old people find it somewhere else, 
my darling, for ‘as one whom his mother com- 
forteth even so will I comfort thee.’ ” 

So Agnes caught in the mirror of her mother’s 
tenderness one gleam reflected of the Love of God. 

“But I don’t think we’ll mention the matter 
to your father, ” said Mrs. Vaughan softly, as she 
started after the tea things; “not that I would 
wish to deceive him,” she added doubtfully, “but 
some things are better kept just sacred and secret 
between a mother and her child. ” 


CHAPTER XII 


“on with the new” 

The quarrel which had separated Patricia and 
Lord Wellingborough grew as much bigger in her 
estimation as it diminished in his during the weeks 
that followed it. It is ever so in the minds of men 
and women. A woman’s imagination feeds a feel- 
ing which, in a man’s absorption in outside interests, 
gradually dies of inanition. To Patricia the whole 
thing became increasingly hopeless; to Welling- 
borough the irritation quickly faded, and he drew 
nearer each day to the avowal of his love. He 
had not intended to marry, but stronger and 
stronger grew the compelling power of love as 
against reason; and his first resistance to the idea 
was wearing thin. Jim Wellingborough was a 
strong and masterful man underneath his sym- 
pathetic manner and apparently courteous com- 
pliance. His enemies called him overbearing, 
and they were not far wrong in their estimate on 
the whole. Many of them had felt the iron hand 
which wore such an exceptionally silken-velvet 
glove, and it became a sure thing that, whatever 
opposed, Wellingborough would get his own way, 
314 


“On With the New” 


3i5 


though his methods in so doing were always 
tactful and gentle and reasonable. But twice 
in his life Jim Wellingborough had met with some- 
thing stronger than himself, and though he 
wrestled with it till the breaking of the day, it left 
him a vanquished man. And as he bowed his 
proud spirit under the touch of Love, he smiled as 
all its captives do, for dear is the service and 
delightful the slavery which Love demands. 
The Love of God had claimed him first, and as 
he thought of Patricia he knew that Love was 
passing again his way and he must follow. 

As Lord Wellingborough sat and smoked in his 
beautiful library, which occupied the drawing- 
room floor of the spacious vicarage house, his 
looked an easy lot indeed. But that was to those 
who only see the surface of things, and do not 
understand the endless giving out which a clergy- 
man’s life involves. For twelve years and more he 
had been giving himself, and had received in ex- 
change the blessed power to give more. For he 
was one of those who know that “without shedding 
of blood there is no” — anything. His great per- 
sonal power and influence lay in this realization, 
and he never took a service, or preached a sermon, 
or received a caller, or read a litany, or made a 
speech, or wrote a letter, or went to a party, with- 
out a conscious gift of himself. So after Easter 
— almost the end of the Church’s year of events 
— he sat in his study spent and tired beyond all 
description, but smiling at the pull against which 


316 


Patricia 


he found he could brace himself no longer. He 
must go, — the pull had pulled him down. 

So it came to pass as Patricia was walking up 
the hill at the back of the village where the wild 
hyacinths lay like blue wreaths of smoke along 
the woodland turf, and the sweet spring sunshine, 
lighting up the radiant green of May, seemed to 
make the shadow on her spirits darker still, she 
suddenly lifted her eyes and saw the man about 
whom she was thinking — about whom she had 
never ceased thinking, till her thoughts were worn 
out — coming towards her. 

“Patricia,” he said, “I could not stay away. 
I had to come. Say you are glad to see me. ” 

“Glad!” she echoed as if dazed by so brilliant 
a flash of joy. “ Glad ! Why, I thought you were 
angry with me and would never come back any 
more.” 

Then he kissed her, and there was no more to be 
said. Their song of love was a song without words. 

“Aunt Lucy,” said Patricia, leaving Lord 
Wellingborough in the vault-like drawing-room 
while she went to find her aunt. “ Lord Welling- 
borough has come. He has asked me to marry 
him. At least he hasn’t asked me, but I am going 
to.” 

Mrs. Vaughan dropped her sewing and tipped 
over her work basket in her flurry. 

“My dear! — have you got a touch of the sun?” 

“No, I’m all right. It’s true, aunt. He’s in 
the drawing-room.” 


“On With the New” 


3i7 


“ Oh ! my love. I am upset ! I feel as if I must 
laugh or cry. ” 

“ I never heard anything like you in all my life, 
Patricia,” exclaimed Maggie. “The way you flirt 
with men. ” 

“With whom else could I flirt?” replied her 
cousin. “But I have never flirted with Lord Wel- 
lingborough. He is the one exception to my great 
rule.” 

“It is much more than you deserve, ” continued 
Maggie. “ I thought when you refused Godolphin 
Muirfield your worldly prospects were at an 
end.” 

“So they were,” said Patricia with her enig- 
matical half smile. 

“ Not much like it, ” persisted her cousin, “when 
you tell me you are engaged to a rich lord who is 
a far better match still. ” 

“Oh! Maggie, don’t! Don’t touch it with such 
fearfully dirty hands, and say such dreadful 
things!” 

“There is nothing dreadful about what I say,” 
continued Maggie huffily. “It’s only the simple 
truth.” 

“That is just what it is not; the simple truth 
is that we love each other, — the vulgar truth is 
what you say. ” 

“ Don’t quarrel, girls! We’ve all lost our heads 
a bit at Patricia’s great news — for such indeed it 
is. I wish you every blessing, dear, and I am so 
glad, now I come to think of it, that you will have 


318 


Patricia 


a good and religious husband. I hadn’t thought of 
that till just now. ” 

“No more had I, dear aunt.” 

“ I am sure your uncle will be pleased. ” 

“You’ll be a queer clergyman’s wife,” sniffed 
Maggie. 

“I know some people consider him a queer 
clergyman,” laughed Patricia. 

“I didn’t mean that — ” began Maggie; but 
Patricia had followed Aunt Lucy into the drawing- 
room. 

“ It’s hard, ” said Maggie to herself, “very hard! 
Agnes and I never get a lover at all — even a nobody ; 
and here’s Patricia behaving as badly as she knows 
how, and getting one good thing on the top of 
another! It’s not as if she deserved them even. 
But no girl deserves two lords, ” and Maggie went 
off to find and tell Agnes, with a sort of unholy 
satisfaction in the thought that her sister would 
mind it even more than she did. But there she 
was wrong. Agnes had never entered into the lists 
with Patricia, and so it never occurred to her to 
be jealous of her. She was very fond of her cousin 
and was glad to hear of her good fortune. More- 
over, she had a hazy hope that if Patricia were 
married she would be a very kind friend, and the 
better the match the more chances of such kind- 
ness would Patricia possess. So Maggie received 
no comfort in that direction ; and Agnes went down 
to congratulate Patricia, wondering whether she 
would ever know Lord Wellingborough well 


“On With the New” 


3i9 


enough, as Patricia’s husband, to call him by his 
Christian name, for he would surely count as her 
cousin, too. And the idea gave her distinct pleas- 
ure and satisfaction. 

“How long have you liked me?” Patricia asked 
her lover, as they strolled off after tea down to the 
river side. 

“From the first minute I saw your face in the 
Muirfields’ drawing-room. It was a magnet and 
has been drawing me ever since.” 

“ Did you know you liked me then? ’ 

“ I didn’t think about it. I only — well, just liked 
you, you know. Did you like me, too, that day?” 

“I liked your speech, ” said Patricia. 

“Oh! that’s nothing. What I want to know is 
did you like me.” 

“I don’t know. I liked talking to you. I 
wanted you to like me.” 

“Why?” 

“Every woman wants every man to like her, 
I suppose.” 

“That spoils it all. Was I just any man to 
you?” 

“Not any man, — a particular man.” 

“But when did I become the not a particular 
man?” persisted Wellingborough, taking Patricia’s 
arm. 

When a man takes a woman’s arm it is always a 
sign that they love each other, even though they 
be old and matter of fact as Uncle George and 
Aunt Lucy were, yet he took her arm often as 


320 


Patricia 


they walked home through the avenue from 
church. 

“It was at the Muirfields’ ball,” replied Pa- 
tricia slowly, “that you became the the , and then 
there were no others at all. There had been be- 
fore.” 

“Who had there been?” asked Wellingborough 
sharply. 

Patricia flushed up, and her cheeks burned rather 
hot with that rare and delicate colour which only 
pale people ever show. 

“Oh! just others,” she said vaguely. 

“What others?” and his voice sounded stem. 

“There have always been others ever since I 
grew up — I have forgotten half of them myself 
by now.” 

“I wish there hadn’t been.” 

“But there was never a the till you came,” 
and she drew closer to him. “ I am telling you the 
truth, — the others only cared for me. I have 
never loved any man before, and now it seems as 
if you must always have been here, because my 
love is so big. And yet this morning you had not 
come. Oh ! what centuries ago this morning seems ! ” 

“But what made you know at the Muirfields’ 
ball?” asked Wellingborough, — when his lips were 
again free for conversation. 

“It was when Golly asked me to marry him.” 

“Golly! Proposed to you! I did not know 
even that you were friends. Confounded cheek of 
him!” 


“On With the New” 


321 


Patricia laughed. 

“I wonder what makes one man so different 
from all the rest, when really he is fundamentally 
just the same. ” 

“ Do you infer that I am like that young ass. ” 

“Only in being a man. And he’s really a very 
nice boy. You shouldn’t abuse him.” 

“As long as he keeps his proper place as a boy 
I shan’t quarrel with him. But to presume to 
propose to you, Patricia! He must have been 
mad!” 

“Do you mean that it is a sign of madness to 
want to marry me?” 

“You know quite well what I mean. For you 
yourself could never have thought of such a thing, 
and therefore it was a piece of d — d impertinence 
on his part. ” 

Patricia suddenly came to the knowledge that 
she was afraid of this lover of hers. She dare not 
tell him that she had encouraged Golly, much less 
that she had been on the verge of accepting him. 
It is men’s own fault when their womenkind are 
afraid of them, and therefore dare not be quite 
straight in their dealings; yet out of this much 
unhappiness springs. For Patricia had not done 
wrong in wanting to marry Golly. She had done 
right on a high level when at the last minute she 
refused him; yet she was afraid to tell the truth 
to Wellingborough, and her fear was, unfortunately 
for them both, quite justifiable, for Wellingborough 
could be stem and hard underneath his sympa- 


2X 


322 


Patricia 


thetic manner. His congregation at St. Michael’s 
were attracted by that sternness with which he 
uncompromisingly dealt with their fashionable 
faults and foibles. They enjoyed the prick and 
tingle of reviving conscience. They loved to go 
and see him privately and taste the charm of his 
admonitions, for the atmosphere of his presence 
was sharp and fresh and exhilarating, and braced 
those who were sluggish and enervated by the 
exotic softness of luxury and ease. But life had 
of late been hard on Patricia, and she was tired 
with work and thought and indecision, and weak 
with mental and physical effort beyond her 
strength. And because she cared for Welling- 
borough, she was afraid. So she was silent, and 
that silence was the beginning of a great calamity. 

“I had made up my mind not to marry,” 
continued Wellingborough, quite unconscious of 
the momentous interval. “I was too busy, and 
had so much work to get through in life, and so I 
resolved to live in and for my work. And then I 
met you, my darling, and I knew what a fool I was 
to think I could be master of my own life and make 
my own rigid plans.” 

“Did you want me so much?” she asked wist- 
fully. 

“Want you! I should think I did!” and he 
held her close. 

“Then why did you quarrel with me that time? ” 

“ Because I cared so much. It seems to me that 
a man is absolutely primitive with the woman he 


“On With the New” 


323 


loves — it is his own nature, whatever that may be. 
Yet his conduct otherwise may be ruled entirely 
by educative influences, until the man’s human 
nature is so pruned or smothered as to be hidden 
altogether. And it is right that it should be so. 
Our primitive nature is not fit for the doing of our 
work in life — but to the woman we have only that 
to give — ourselves in very essence. Well, you 
have me, Patricia, in all my natural overbearing- 
ness and impatient temper.” 

“But you are so awfully good, you know, so 
much too good for me.” 

“ That’s silly talk,” he said, so gently and tenderly 
that Patricia wondered why she had ever been 
afraid. “You will have a lot to put up with, dar- 
ling.” Then there rushed over Patricia the long- 
ing to tell him all about her book. She thought 
she dare when he looked at her like that. 

“If we love each other it won’t matter, will it?” 
she said softly. 

“It is because we love each other that it does 
matter, darling. However horrid I might be 
would matter infinitely to you because you love 
me, you see.” 

“And so my horridness would matter frightfully 
to you, you mean?” rather faintly. 

“ It would, if there were, or ever could be, horrid- 
ness in you, mine own. But as that is an unthink- 
able contingency we need not discuss it.” 

So Patricia’s confidence was barred again, and 
she was silent. Men are sometimes afraid of 


324 


Patricia 


women’s talk, which they are apt to consider 
nagging. But it is a woman’s nature to say things 
over and over again, and to talk of that of which 
she is thinking. When a woman is silent, then 
is the time for man to be afraid, only he does not 
know it. 

The week that followed Patricia’s engagement 
was one of pure joy. All unpleasant thoughts and 
fears she blithely ignored, with the ease of her Irish 
temperament. And she and her lover spent four- 
teen happy hours to the day in doing and saying 
exactly the same things which lovers have always 
done and said, and yet which are eternally fresh 
and new. Wellingborough even took the Sunday 
duty for Uncle George, and Patricia listened in 
church as she had never listened before. The 
familiar lilt of the well-worn hymns thrilled her 
because Jim was singing them with her, and the 
magnetic power of his preaching enveloped her 
with a mist of wonder and a vague outreaching 
after hidden and, to her, quite impossible things. 

“It was a fine sermon his lordship gave us,” 
said the miller’s wife as they walked homewards 
down the lane. 

“It was,” assented her husband, “something 
marvellous. But somehow I like the old rector’s 
preaching the best. You always know what he 
is going to say, and it makes it more simple and 
homely-like. And many of his words my dear old 
mother and I have listened to side by side, and that 
gives ’em a saving power to a man. I don’t be- 


“On With the New” 


325 


lieve there’s one of the rector’s sermons that I 
don’t know through and through. And when he 
does give us a new one, why there’s the same old 
thoughts dished up a bit different. They’re like 
eggs, mother, you may boil ’em or fry ’em or 
poach ’em, but they’re just eggs, and the only 
difference is in the cooking.” 

"So it is. But for my part I like a bit of a 
change now and again.” 

“Well, I can’t abide it, ” said the miller, and the 
subject was closed. 

“Jim,” asked Patricia, all soaked as she was in 
the atmosphere of Sunday, “do you mind about 
my not being religious?” 

He put his arm round her and smiled. 

“I can’t think I am a very suitable wife for a 
clergyman, ” she continued. 

“ I don’t want a suitable wife for a clergyman, — 
I want the woman whom, as a man, I love.” 

“But I shan’t be able to do any of the proper 
things, you know.” 

“ Do you mean curates’ or district visitors’ work? 
When I want a curate I get one, and when I need 
district visitors I appoint them. What would you 
think of a doctor, Patricia, who said that he could 
only marry a qualified dispenser? Don’t be fool- 
ish, little one, and talk about things of which you 
are sublimely ignorant.” 

“But I have lived in a rectory now for over a 
year, and I know all about it, and what clergymen’s 
wives are expected to do.” 


326 


Patricia 


“My dearest, I cannot imagine anything that I 
should hate more than to marry the professional 
clergyman’s-wife, — and, be it said to their credit, 
they are rarely like that when a man does marry 
them. There is a groove or rut into which they 
settle, but their husbands see them as they were 
before they became professional. ” 

“As you see me now?” 

“No — not a bit of it! No man ever saw what 
I see in you, sweetheart. Of course ours is an 
absolutely unique case, for no woman was ever 
in the least like you. ” 

“Except all the women who are, and have been, 
and ever will be engaged, dearest.” 

“Well perhaps with just those exceptions, but 
they are hardly worth mentioning.” 

“You dear!” she said smiling. 

“I want you to come and stay in another 
clergyman’s house soon. Henrietta Carleton is a 
great friend of mine, and when I tell her about you 
she will invite you, I know. Dick Carleton is a 
delightful fellow. You’ll like them immensely, 
and you’ll like the taste of London again I know.” 

“Oh London! in June! How heavenly it will 
be, Jim, to be there with you!” 

“I’ve been thinking, sweetheart, that it would 
be futile of us to waste much time in a long engage- 
ment! What do you think?” 

The fact of being engaged was enough for Pa- 
tricia for the present, — but it is never enough for 
a man. 


“On With the New” 


327 


“It is rather a nice kind of waste,” she said. 
“But I want you, Patricia. I want you to be 
altogether and wholly mine. And there is nothing 
to wait for. Besides, you know, I am an impa- 
tient man.” 

‘ ‘ J im, ’ ’ said Patricia suddenly. 1 1 1 have written 
a book. It will be published next month. ” 

“You clever darling! What is it about?” he 
asked indulgently, for as yet it had never struck 
Jim Wellingborough that Patricia was a genius. 

“It is my father’s Life,” she answered slowly. 
Her lover looked surprised 

“The half has not been told me!” he remarked. 
“How I shall love to read it! Shall I learn more 
about you in it, darling, or do you only tell a tale? ” 
‘ ‘ Tell a tale ! That is not writing a book ! ’ ’ 

“I stand corrected. But you must forgive me, 
for I have thought so much about what you are, 
that it never occurred to me to wonder what you 
could do. ” 

“I will marry you as soon after my book is out 
and you have read it, as you like, ” said Patricia 
sadly, and the tears suddenly welled up into her 
eyes. But her lover put them down to the usual 
emotion in speaking of the deepest things, and 
as he kissed them away he never dreamed that 
they had any other significance. 

So it was settled that Patricia should stay with 
Archdeacon and Lady Henrietta Carleton the 
following month, and from there should make all 
preparations for her approaching wedding. At 


328 


Patricia 


least that was Wellingborough’s programme. 
Patricia went no further than accepting the 
invitation. 

One morning after Lord Wellingborough’s and 
before Patricia’s departure to London Aunt Lucy 
came into the dining-room in a state of great 
perturbation. 

“ 1 am upset ! ” she exclaimed. 

“What is the matter?” asked her niece. 

“The day of the Visitation is fixed. ” 

“That sounds like a plague, ” suggested Patricia. 

“My dear, it’s worse! It’s the Bishop,” 
groaned the rector’s wife. “It is most upsetting, 
and much more so to me than to your uncle. For 
he will never see how many wrong things he will 
say and do, and I am sure the Bishop will never 
understand what a devoted parish priest he is, in 
spite of the registers and things being in a bit of a 
muddle. Oh dear ! Oh dear ! There never were 
such things as Visitations in our young days, and 
it is hard to have to begin with them when you’re 
nearer seventy than sixty years of age. The very 
thought makes my heart beat. ” 

“But why should it, Aunt. I am sure the Bishop 
will be most kind and delightful. And as for 
Uncle George doing his duty — why, he never does 
anything else.” 

Aunt Lucy seemed a little comforted by this 
view of the case. 

“What do Bishops do at Visitations?” en- 
quired her niece. 


‘'On With the New” 


329 


“They ask questions, ” said Aunt Lucy gloomily, 
“and your uncle isn’t accustomed to being asked 
questions. He has had his own way now for so 
many years, and been looked up to so by every- 
one, that I can’t think how he will manage when 
it is the other way about.” 

“It is easy enough to answer questions. ” 

“Not for a man of your uncle’s temperament, 
my dear. And somehow it seems to belittle him 
before his people in my opinion, though of course 
we must submit to whatever the Bishop thinks 
right. Only I do wish such things hadn’t come 
into fashion in our time. It is the same with 
motors and aeroplanes, they all seem a bit fast 
for us.” 

“Jim says Visitations are splendid things,” said 
Patricia. 

“My dear, he’s young, and accustomed to 
everything in order. But it’s different with your 
uncle. He has just done his best in his own way, 
and that ought to be sufficient for the parish, and 
the Bishop, in my opinion!” added Aunt Lucy 
with a flash. “ But don’t let him know I’m upset, 
my love. He thinks whatever the Bishop says 
and does is right — only I don’t feel quite like that 
when he bothers your uncle. ” 

“Then there’s the lunch,” continued Mrs. 
Vaughan after a pause, “and the rural dean will 
have to come, too. Cook is a good girl and a regu- 
lar communicant, but her gravies are not quite 
what they ought to be. Your uncle would have 


330 


Patricia 


one of our own girls, but a Baptist applied who 
could do entrees and I wanted her dreadfully, only 
your uncle wouldn’t hear of it. Now with the 
Bishop coming what a comfort that Baptist would 
have been!” 

“Oh! it will be all right,” said Patricia sooth- 
ingly, “and you can have something that doesn’t 
need gravy. ” 

“ I think we must have a few friends in to tea,” 
suggested Aunt Lucy cheering up. “Oh! I do 
wish dear Lady Muirfield was at home.” 

“ I am very glad she isn’t ! And it can be a sort 
of half garden party. Oh ! it will be great fun ! ” 

“It might be if the Bishop wasn’t coming.” 

“But then there would be no party. No, I 
think the crux of the fun will be the Bishop. ” 

“Oh! my dear! that is not a reverent way of 
speaking of him — almost wicked, your uncle would 
think. And we must hope for the best, — only I do 
trust that your uncle will give the right answers 
and do himself justice.” 

“He cannot help but do so if he gives the true 
answers,” said Patricia. “Don’t you worry. It 
will all be simply splendid — you mark my words. ” 

“Everything is simply splendid when a girl is 
engaged, my love. But when you’ve been married 
nearer fifty years than forty, you know your 
husband’s weak places as well as his strong. Not 
that your uncle has any to speak of, but the few 
there are I’d rather keep to myself, and not let the 
Bishop know about them. ” 


“On With the New” 


33i 


For several days before the Visitation Aunt Lucy 
was in a terrible fuss. On the preceding day she 
read two lots of Psalms and Lessons, as she knew 
that she could spare little time on the day itself 
for these religious exercises. A heavy shower in 
the morning reduced her to distraction, and Patricia 
found her industriously sponging up the puddles 
with Uncle George’s bath sponge and a basin, in 
order that the terrace might be more fit for episco- 
pal feet. Uncle George himself was sublimely 
unconscious of any perturbing element. He had 
given his parish all his best, and only his best, 
and no man could do more. He was an old- 
fashioned man and had old-fashioned methods, 
but these in his opinion were by far the best, 
and he never doubted but that the Bishop 
would agree with him. A sick call unfortunately 
claimed him so that he was not at home when the 
Bishop arrived, and that almost reduced Aunt 
Lucy to tears. 

“No one would have said a word if old Betty had 
been dying,” she exclaimed in exasperated tones, 
“but a mere pain in her inside is no excuse for 
sending for the rector at a time like this and no 
occasion for prayer and scripture; and if he had 
taken my advice, he would not have gone.” 

But when the Bishop actually arrived, “peace 
be to this house” was his unspoken blessing, for 
he brought with him an atmosphere of such cour- 
teous kindliness and understanding sympathy that 
Aunt Lucy’s heart almost burst forth into singing, 


332 


Patricia 


and she found herself actually confiding in him 
concerning those little anxieties which were con- 
nected with her husband’s work and ways in 
parochial life. 

“You see, my lord,” she continued, “my dear 
husband is growing old, and it is too late to change 
a man’s methods when he is nearly seventy, but 
he does his best,” she added simply, “and there’s 
not a family in Lynfield in which the rector has not 
a place, and of which he is not a lifelong friend.” 

“My dear Mrs. Vaughan,” replied the Bishop 
gently, “it is to help your husband and to 
strengthen his hands that I have come. To tell 
your people, though they are happy enough to 
know it, the true value of their spiritual father, 
and to try to rouse them to a more active and 
faithful following of their friend and pastor.” 

Tears, of which she forgot to be ashamed, rolled 
down Aunt Lucy’s cheeks and flecked her new 
bonnet strings. 

“You must forgive me, my lord, for thinking 
false things of you in my heart. I feared you were 
coming to criticize, and I am afraid I would fight 
any one who criticized my dear husband, so my 
mind was full of resentment, and I did not welcome 
you as I ought.” 

“It is all right,” said the Bishop smiling, “and 
one of the good things about my Visitation will be 
that you and I have become friends. It is always 
pleasure to me to be brought into closer contact 
with my clergy, and these little times when I can 


“On With the New” 


333 


join their home circle are of great value to me in 
showing me the domestic side of a man, whom I 
only see professionally and parochially in the official 
part of the proceedings.” 

Lynfield Church had never been so full as it was 
that afternoon. The nonconformists crowded in 
with the unconscious hope that the rector might 
be admonished. The regular church-goers were 
drawn by novelty and excitement. The faithful 
flock crowded round their shepherd in loyalty and 
with a protective care that was both touching and 
absurd. But no one looked forward to that which 
actually took place, when the Bishop addressed the 
people with such power and simplicity that even 
the most callous hearts were touched, and the 
most oppositions minds impressed. They had, one 
and all, whether they owned it or not, come to 
hear the trial of their rector before the Bishop’s 
judgment-seat, and to their astonishment they 
found themselves within the dock. With a 
wonderful insight into village minds his lordship 
spoke straight out to village people, and they 
understood every word that he said and realized 
the truth of it. It, moreover, began to dawn upon 
their limited outlook that the parish of Lynfield 
was not the Church of England in to to, but that 
they were linked on to a larger life than they had 
any idea of, and that there was something bigger 
and beyond their own village which still claimed 
their interest and their prayers. Of course their 
own was infinitely the most important, — every 


334 


Patricia 


inhabitant of Lynfield was sure of that, — but that 
there were others at all was something to have 
learned. And the diocese, which was a dead 
letter in name to them, only occasionally claiming 
collections, suddenly became an actual organiza- 
tion, and the Bishop a real, living man at its head. 

Uncle George’s statement was brief, and humble, 
and dignified, and simple. The few questions he 
was asked he answered slowly, and twice was 
helped out by audible promptings from Aunt 
Lucy from behind the organ screen. It was really 
more than she could bear to hear her husband 
giving wrong numbers on the side that detracted 
from his own credit. 

“How many communicants had you on Ascen- 
sion Day, Mr. Rector?” asked the Bishop, and 
Uncle George replied : 

“I should think only about four or five, my 
lord.” 

Then Aunt Lucy sprang to her feet and her 
bonnet nodded over the top of the screen with her 
vehemence : 

“There were eleven, George,” she said eagerly. 
“I know I am right, for I counted them myself, 
and put it down in my own diary. ” 

“I shouldn’t have spoken,” she told Patricia 
afterwards, “if his mistakes had been on the right 
side. But trust a man for making the worst of 
himself, just when it matters most.” 

So the Visitation brought much that was good 
to Lynfield, and the essence of that good lay in the 


“On With the New” 


335 


personal visit and influence of such a great and 
good man as was the Bishop. For as every saint 
passes on his way he leaves behind him a moral 
fragrance, faint and fleeting, but of the same sweet 
savour as that which was left in the plains of 
Jericho when Jesus of Nazareth once passed by. 


CHAPTER XIII 


IN LONDON 

Of all the experiences of Patricia’s life nothing 
surprised her more than her visit to the Carletons. 
She had no idea that such people existed, and their 
world was utterly different from anything that she 
had imagined. The Lynfield world and the rec- 
tory environment had been strange to her expe- 
rience but familiar to her theories of what such 
would be. Everything had been exactly in 
drawing with her preconceived ideas of clerical 
life, and in size measured to that scale. Religion 
had appeared to her as the boring performance of 
certain unpicturesque ceremonies, and many rather 
squalid tasks. Theology had been appraised by 
her as the somewhat ludicrous adherence to quite 
out-of-date beliefs. The clergy had been classed 
by her as a number of narrow, uninteresting, and 
utterly old-fashioned beings, who lived in unat- 
tractive poverty and taught absurd faiths. And 
though she saw and appreciated the beauty of 
her aunt’s character, she lovingly laughed at her 
religion much as she laughed at her voluminous 
petticoats or elastic-side boots. 

336 


In London 


337 


But in the Carletons’ house there was the same 
attractive, expensive atmosphere which she had 
revelled in at Princes Gate: beauty everywhere, 
in fine works of art, exquisite flowers, schemes of 
colour, daintiness beyond all description in every 
detail: perfectly-trained servants, a motor to go 
about in, a maid to command: all that Patricia in 
her most fastidious moods could desire. And then 
the people whom she met there were so astonishing : 
men cultured and clever, men brilliant and witty, 
statesmen, noblemen, head-masters, men of letters 
and of art; and yet withal many of them in 
Orders, but such clergymen as Patricia had 
never dreamed of. The women were charming, 
and gracious, and interesting, and clever. Many 
were of high rank, all of high worth. Their 
manners were perfect, and their conversation 
delightful. There were young people, too — at- 
tractive, wholesome girls, and pleasant ’Varsity 
boys. But the thing that was incomprehensible, 
yet quite apparent to Patricia, was the binding 
power of a great universal interest, by which all 
these people were welded together and animated, in 
whatever walk of life their lot happened to be cast. 
It was not good breeding only, for that Patricia 
had met elsewhere; but it was nevertheless some- 
thing so well-bred that it scornfully stood aloof 
from the upper-class vulgarity of mere smartness or 
the ostentation of extravagance. It was not only 
intellectual power, though that existed in such 
good measure running over that Patricia’s de- 


22 


338 


Patricia 


mands in that direction were abundantly satisfied, 
and she even was sometimes left behind. She 
knew the catchwords of the higher criticism, but 
these men knew by heart the text-books of all 
criticism, and she felt swept away by the immense 
tide of learning and scholarship with which they 
discussed questions and problems which her 
father’s set used superficially to set aside. Nor 
was it a general kindliness of tone, though that 
welcomed the girl and made her perfectly and 
happily at home. 

“Jim, tell me what it is,” she asked her lover, as 
they sat sipping their coffee on the balcony after 
one of the most brilliant luncheon parties which 
Patricia had ever enjoyed — “the thing that makes 
all this so wonderful and interesting, and other 
sets so superficial and thin?” 

“It is the one vital and consuming motor power 
of Christianity, without which everything is life- 
less and dull. When once you realize the immense 
possibilities of Christian life, and thought, and 
inspiration on the higher plane, you come in con- 
tact with a refining, uplifting, expanding force 
which makes the Real so obvious that all that is 
not real seems shabby and squalid and poor. 
And when Christianity absorbs people until it 
becomes a part of themselves, they naturally 
speak only in terms of the Real; and it is this 
apprehension of Christianity which has supplied 
all the vital elements of the highest forms of 
civilization.” 


In London 


339 


“How about the civilizations of Greece and 
Rome?” 

“They were only great up to a point. They 
contained the seeds of decay within themselves, 
and lacked the power of infinite expansion. They 
only touched the cultured classes, and they have 
passed away. But Christianity touches every class, 
and is ever seeking and attaining new develop- 
ments. It is because these people are touched by 
this great force in the intellectual, moral, aesthetic, 
and every part of their being, that you feel them 
different from other people you have known.” 

“But Uncle George and Aunt Lucy are very 
religious people?” queried Patricia. 

“Yes — but I never said that Christianity would 
create cleverness, or rank, or distinction, or any 
of those things which appeal to you. But when 
they are there, and wherever they may be, Chris- 
tianity can so vivify the existing as to make it 
eternal in essence. And things temporal are 
essentially dull when you compare them with 
things eternal, just as children’s games are boring 
to those who are grown up. ” 

“ I can see of course, ” said Patricia thoughtfully, 
“that everybody here is looking only from the 
Christian’s standpoint, — but it is such a much 
higher one and sees so much farther than I 
thought. ” 

“It is a vast co-operation, too, and that begets 
the spirit of camaraderie, which is always healthy 
and delightful. ” 


340 


Patricia 


“That old Bishop astonished me most of all — 
the one who sat by Lady Henrietta. He talked 
of personal spiritual things as simply and unaffect- 
edly as if he were discussing politics, and there 
somehow seemed no incongruity anywhere.” 

“Yes, he is wonderful in that way. There is 
usually a reverent line of demarcation even in the 
most religious atmosphere between the general 
and the personal — but the Bishop lives on the far 
side of that line, and yet his reverence is one of his 
most striking qualities.” 

“And I used to think there was no humour in 
religious people. But the Head-master and the 
Archdeacon simply excelled each other in telling 
good tales, and they made exquisite fun of things 
and people. They weren’t a bit narrow. ” 

“Why should they be, sweetheart?” 

“I expected them to be.” 

“But that wasn’t a very cogent reason, surely?” 
and he smiled at her as one smiles at a much- 
loved child. 

“I believe,” said Patricia after a while, “that 
hundreds of people are irreligious simply because 
they have never met the right type of Christian. ” 
“Just as people are socialistic until they are in- 
vited to dine with the King. Oh, I know what you 
mean, darling, and I agree with you and regret it. ” 
“My father despised the clergy, but then he 
had never met a man like Dr. Pryor, who writes 
so brilliantly, and is so big and strong and alive. ” 
“Did he ever seek to? For like good society 


In London 


34i 


everywhere, it does not admit those who neither 
seek it, nor have any claim to being included in it. 
There’s a patent of nobility for all aristocracies.” 

“Jim, do you think I shall ever understand? 
I want to, you know. I hate to feel out of it 
when all the women are talking about their work 
and hopes and ideals. I never feel out of it with 
the men — because if you are ignorant men always 
enjoy teaching you, — but if you are ignorant, with 
women they think you are a bore. ” 

“You darling!” 

“But that is no answer, my own. ” 

“Do I think you will ever understand? Yes, 
dear, I am sure you will, but I can’t tell when. It 
bloweth where it listeth, you know, ” and his voice 
was very tender. 

“I should like to be the sort of woman Lady 
Henrietta is. She is so wise, and good, and dear, 
and funny. But she makes me feel fearfully crude 
and young.” 

“Don’t want to be like any one else — be just 
yourself, sweetheart, and you will be almost 
perfect ; and when you find your fullest and highest 
self, why then you will be quite perfect. That 
day is dawning, darling.” 

“Oh no, Jim! I’m horrid really — quite uncivil- 
ized. Don’t ever go away and leave me alone 
outside, ” and her voice trembled. “Promise you 
won’t. ” 

“I promise, dearest.” And that promise came 
back to him on a dark and difficult day. 


342 


Patricia 


Another thing that surprised Patricia was the 
enormous breadth of interest in the lives of her 
host and hostess. Lady Henrietta’s days were full 
up to the brim, and everything she did was for 
some ulterior and absorbing purpose. She was in 
touch with the vast organization of Christian 
effort for the amelioration of mankind, and Pa- 
tricia began to see the charm of doing things that 
matter, as compared with the inanity of doing 
utterly unimportant and futile things. There were 
social duties of course, but as people flocked to the 
Archdeacon’s house they were all animated with 
interest in the many-sided work which they came 
to discuss, and the burnish from their intercourse 
was just as brilliant as that which Patricia used to 
see in the old intellectual atmosphere of her home. 
This society was quite as intellectual, but it was 
something more. How much more Patricia did 
not realize till she went to lunch with some of her 
old Bohemian friends, and, to her amazement, she 
felt their atmosphere thin. They talked just as 
of yore, but Patricia slightly shrank from their 
cheap cynicism; and their amused discussion of 
local divorces and society intrigues struck her as 
wanting in good taste. She could not imagine 
Lady Henrietta, with her fastidious and essentially 
courteous outlook on her fellow-creatures, stooping 
to talk about the unwholesome details of the society 
underworld. It suddenly seemed to Patricia to 
be nauseous and nasty for women to be in love 
with other women’s husbands, and for men to be 


In London 


343 


intriguing with others than their wives. The tone 
of a world where free love was preached and prac- 
tised, where marriages were assumed to be un- 
happy, and all things pure and healthy were 
considered old-fashioned and bad form, wa^rnot in 
harmony with Patricia’s present mood. \ For the 
Carletons’ set had taught her that niceness is the 
normal condition of things and people, and that all 
that is horrid and ugly is not only a disease, but a 
curable disease. She had caught the exhilarating 
optimism which is the Christian characteristic, 
and it was like a sea-breeze. She was realizing 
how many delightful people there were in the world, 
and that statesmen were straight and honourable, 
and society, in large measure, fresh and clean: 
that the cynics were only so because they were 
morally short-sighted, and that all sin was unat- 
tractive and coarse and low: that the world was 
growing better, and the forces of right were uncon- 
querable: that many men of worth, who yet 
lack faith, were nearer than they knew to the 
Kingdom of God — and that the growth of that 
Kingdom was the crown of politics, the inspiration 
of work, the essence of interest, the realization of 
the ideal. The taste of power is sweet to men’s 
lips, and when they have once drawn on the limit- 
less Power of the Spirit of God, then are they con- 
tent no more with the puny efforts of man alone. 

Strange though it was, of all the days at the 
Carletons’ Patricia thought she enjoyed Sunday 
most. 


344 


Patricia 


“I brought Jim back to breakfast,” said Lady 
Henrietta as she greeted Patricia about nine 
o’clock. “And we are so hungry. Do forage for 
me while I pour out the tea. There is coffee 
somewhere over there keeping warm.” 

Patricia and her lover met at the side table, 
where the breakast dishes sat upon the hot copper 
stands. 

“I am glad you came,” she said softly, and 
thought that eggs and bacon never tasted half so 
nice. 

“Where is everyone going today?” asked the 
Archdeacon as one or two other visitors drifted in. 

“I want to hear three different men at once,” 
said his wife, “and it is awkward to manage. I 
want to hear the Archbishop, and then Father 
Wainwright will be inimitable at St. Anne’s, I 
know, — and I always want to hear Jim. What 
shall I do?” 

“ I want to hear Jim, ” said Patricia. 

“Oh, no. That’s foolish of you, ” said Welling- 
borough. “You’ll hear me so often by and by — 
and Father Wainwright is a much more uncommon 
treat.” 

“I should advise the Archbishop,” said the 
host. 

“ My mother always used to say, ” continued his 
wife, “that when you are undecided it is a good 
plan to decide what you won’t do. And somehow 
I don’t feel drawn to the Archbishop. Let’s rule 
him out.” 


In London 


345 


“Is he on anything particular today?” Jim 
asked the Archdeacon. 

“Not that I know of, except that he is always on 
something particular. I should like to hear him 
if I were free. I notice, by the way, that nobody 
seems inclined to come and hear me. ” 

“No, Dick, you are going to be diocesan, and 
I cannot bear that. I don’t like you, or anybody 
else either, to specialize. There is always a bit 
of whalebone in a special subject that makes it 
stiff — except when Jim touches it; and then it 
ceases to be a special subject, but becomes the 
only possible subject that anybody could preach 
on at that particular time.” 

“ How nice you are tome!” said Wellingborough. 
“But I always love preaching to you, Henrietta. 
You have such a thirsty face, and you drink in 
every drop that I can draw.” 

“Oh, I wish I could be in two places at once! 
For there’s Father Wainwright pulling.” 

“A sort of pull devil pull baker,” suggested 
Patricia. 

“Yes, and you are the baker, Jim. I love 
Father Wainwright — he’s so wicked and sharp- 
tongued, and knows all about everybody. When 
I hear him I always feel so wicked, and when I 
hear you I always feel so good. Which do you 
think I shall like to feel best today?” 

“I should like to feel good,” said Patricia; “it 
is more of a change. ” 

“If change is what you desire then I should 


346 


Patricia 


advise Henrietta to hear Wainwright,” suggested 
Wellingborough. 

“I am coming to your church, Jim,” said 
Patricia. 

“Then I will come with you,” agreed her hostess. 
“ It is going to be a hot day and I shall be sure to 
be thirsty. You feel as if you’d been eating curry 
when Father Wainwright preaches. And it is not 
the temperature for curry today.” 

“I wonder what people feel they have been 
eating when they have heard me?” queried the 
Archdeacon. 

“Beautiful Sunday roast beef, my dear,” said 
his wife, “and no one ought to want anything 
better.” 

“Who is coming to lunch?” asked Patricia, as 
she strolled with Lady Henrietta into that wonder- 
ful unexpected garden in the heart of London, 
which lies hidden beneath its ancient Abbey’s 
shade; — where the hum of the traffic sounds far 
away as the waves on some distant shore; where 
the great bells clang and clash and melt into the 
old-world music of a Cathedral country town; 
where the birds sing and pretend that they are 
in the woodlands, and the flowers blossom beyond 
the tarnish of the dust. Patricia loved that 
garden, for she and Jim had walked, and talked, 
and sat, and grown in it during many a happy hour 
since she came to town. 

“Heaps of people,” replied Lady Henrietta. 
“Among others the Chancellor of the Exchequer 


In London 


347 


and his beautiful wife. Do you know Lady 
Agatha? She is my beau ideal of what a great 
lady ought to be. I can picture her, in the old 
days when the homes of Cabinet Ministers were a 
kind of Court, standing at the top of the staircase 
and receiving the homage of all the distinguished 
men of the day. She is beautiful to look at, 
though she is getting old now, with that wonderful 
beauty which only a gracious old age can bestow. 
Then the Archbishop and his Chaplain, and Mr. 
Carey the historian, and the Duke and Duchess of 
Armagh, and the President of the Royal Academy, 
and two Cambridge dons, and a Colonial Bishop, 
and of course Jim, and anybody else the Arch- 
deacon may pick up. I forget the exact numbers, 
but I told Simpkins to lay for eighteen, and we 
must hope for the best.” 

“ Do you never have any one to your house who 
is not distinguished?” asked Patricia. 

“Oh, rather, my dear! Wait till tonight. We 
have all the curates in to dinner, and several pet 
boys of the Bishop’s, and one or two of the Arch- 
deacon’s church-workers, and whoever is preaching 
at St. Anselm’s. We shall be very mediocre and 
merry. Nobody could have any brilliance left 
after a full Sunday in London. I always give 
the Archdeacon the most unintellectual novel I can 
find to read on Sunday night. You will have to 
supply Jim in like manner. Here is Richard. He 
has been to the children’s service at St. Anselm’s. ” 

“ How sweet he looks in his white sailor suit ! ” 


348 


Patricia 


A dear little rosy, merry boy came leaping 
towards them. 

“This,” he explained, pulling his jumper, “is 
my surplice — only it isn’t exactly a church sur- 
plice, it’s a dancing surplice.” 

“Oh, you pet ! ” exclaimed his adoring mother. 

Patricia enjoyed the service at Jim’s church 
immensely. The ritual was so stately, the music 
so fine, the crowd of smart people even was inspir- 
ing to Patricia, who had come to regard church 
services as suited entirely to villagers, or to only 
the poor anywhere. 

“There’s the Prime Minister, ” whispered Lady 
Henrietta; “he often comes to hear Jim. ” 

And then the sermon! Patricia thought ser- 
mons were a form of elementary instruction which 
she had long outgrown; — but then she had never 
heard a sermon worthy of the name until she heard 
her lover preach. 

“Jim was immense this morning,” said her 
friend as they walked home by the park. “I am 
so glad we came. A sermon like that is a tremen- 
dous intellectual and moral effort. You could tell 
by his face at the end that virtue had gone out of 
him. He was almost transparent by then. ” 

“I expect he’ll be a rag at lunch, ” said Patricia. 

“ Oh, no ! the Celebration will give him back a full 
supply,” said Lady Henrietta simply. “He has 
to preach again tonight. No man could work like 
that of himself. He couldn’t have it to give unless 
it were supplied, you know.” 


In London 


349 


Patricia walked on in silence. She did not 
understand this practical application of spiritual 
things. 

“All genius, ” continued Lady Henrietta, 
“whether it is artistic, or literary, or spiritual, is 
something given from outside. Haven’t you felt 
that in your own literary work, and in your 
father’s?” 

“Of course I have.” 

“I once heard genius described as knowing by 
intuition what other people know by experience. 
And that is it. Something — or I should say 
Somebody, for it involves intelligence and know- 
ledge — tells you these things, and you just can’t 
help expressing them in your own particular way, 
with brush, or pen, or voice, whatever your in- 
dividual instrument may be.” 

“I see.” 

“Of course geniuses are rare; and spiritual 
geniuses are just as rare as the other kinds. To 
see a thing yourself does not mean that you have 
the genius to carry it to other people. Jim has — 
he is a real spiritual genius; — but thousands of 
the clergy are just like thousands of everybody else. 
They may see and understand for themselves, 
just as I can see and enjoy a beautiful view, but 
I can’t commit it to canvas for the rest of the world 
to see, and many sermons are what my painting 
would be. It is silly to expect genius from the 
majority anywhere. It can’t be done. ” 

“ I never looked at it like that, ” owned Patricia. 


350 


Patricia 


“When sermons were dull and stupid I blamed 
religion. ” 

“Oh! you dear goose! It is like blaming the 
sunset when Richard paints it, or the art of music 
when he plays the Bluebells of Scotland with one 
finger.” 

Then they fell in with friends, and the talk 
drifted into other channels, but Patricia thought 
of these things again. The Carletons talked her 
language, though they spoke of unknown things. 
At Lynfield the Vaughans only discussed the ob- 
vious, but they spake in a strange tongue. 

At luncheon everybody talked politics — but 
politics from the inside. There was of course no 
personal disparaging, for men on both sides met 
at the same house, and all had mutual friends. 
Moreover, people who are near to each other under- 
stand how much better are the motives of all, than 
the outside, ignorant, prejudiced world believes. 
But of honest, courteous criticism there was much, 
and the Archbishop was keenly anxious to control 
the action of the House of Lords in a coming 
debate. He and the Duke discussed Parliamen- 
tary tactics and argued over essential principles. 

“It will have to be a compromise,” said Lord 
Wellingborough, “for the via media is the only 
possible road for politicians.” 

“That is why I’d rather be a parson than a 
politician any day,” said the Colonial Bishop, “I 
like clear courses and to steam ahead full speed. ” 

“Sometimes you have to be both,” and the 


In London 


35i 


Archbishop smiled. “And then you get into hot 
water with the ultra schools, and are a time-server 
and what not.” 

“The art lies in making the times serve us, of 
which your Grace is a past master, ” said Jim. 

“It ought to be easy enough if only our clergy 
were wise men,” suggested the Duke. 

“But our clergy are not necessarily wise men. 
They are good men, and earnest men, but, as re- 
gards wisdom — ” and the Archbishop shook his 
head. 

“The leaven of the laity is wholesome, ” said the 
Bishop, “in all this Church Council movement.” 

“I have an immense faith in the common-sense 
and fair-play spirit of the laity,” said Welling- 
borough, “and their generosity, too. Provided 
of course they have a say in the expenditure — 
and a man would be a fool to give his money 
and have no knowledge of or voice in its 
apportionment. ” 

“Yet there is an inborn antagonism between 
the laity and the clergy,” said Lady Henrietta. 

“That I am afraid is our own fault, ” replied the 
Archbishop slowly. “It is not good for boys of 
twenty-four to regard themselves as the teachers 
of mankind. If they would only understand the 
word ministry we should get on better. But these 
lads, and their elders who are equally ignorant of 
the life of the world about them, put up the 
laity’s back to start with. And then we have the 
great difficulty of the narrowness of depth to deal 


352 


Patricia 


with in so many of our clergy. I do not blame the 
laity myself for much that they resent, and I 
cannot blame the clergy for an unwisdom which 
is in essence fine. The solution seems to be in the 
union of the two, that each may supply what the 
other lacks, and that is the true bond of unity. ” 

“We are advancing in the right direction, ” 
said Jim. 

“From your watch tower you see the whole 
world is doing that. But it is a high tower to 
climb, Wellingborough, and some of us are tired, 
and not so young as we were; and few of us can 
fly.” 

“More and more each year,” suggested Jim 
with a smile. 

“That is true. But I am one who has only been 
able to work on the level. My head won’t stand 
great heights.” 

When lunch was over Patricia realized that she 
had been listening far more than talking. The 
party was broken up into two tables so that 
the conversation was general at each, and the 
most important men were, of course, at Lady 
Henrietta’s. 

In the afternoon everyone had something im- 
portant to do, and Lady Henrietta was at home 
after four o’clock. 

Lots of people called, and dispensing tea in a 
crowded London drawing-room was of Patricia’s 
very nature. 

“You have given me no sugar,” said a rather 


In London 


353 


effeminate, delicate-looking man, whose name she 
had not caught. 

“ Do you like cream or milk? ” she asked, rectify- 
ing her omission. 

“Cream, please. I know it is old-fashioned 
not to say milk, but I have been rather out of the 
world lately and got into primitive ways. Besides, 
I do like cream. ” 

“Have you been living the simple life?” asked 
Patricia. 

“ I have. And might I have two lumps instead 
of one?” 

“I’m sorry I am treating you so badly. You 
are evidently rather fed up with the simple life. 
Where did you try it?” 

“At the South Pole,” replied the man simply, 
and Patricia almost screamed. 

“Tell me lots about it,” she begged. 

“We did not have quite enough cream or sugar 
— that’s about all.” 

Just at that moment an old friend of Edward 
Vaughan and his daughter was announced, and 
he came straight to Patricia. 

“This is charming to find you again in Lon- 
don! How has the world been treating you, 
Patricia?” 

“Badly at first — but delightfully now. I am 
engaged, you know.” 

“I saw it in the Morning Post . But that is 
frightfully elemental and ordinary, my dear. 
Haven’t you been writing something? I heard 


23 


354 


Patricia 


a rumour of your father’s Life. Indeed, to tell you 
the truth, I have seen some of your manuscript. ” 
“What did you think of it?” she asked quickly. 
“ I was amazed. It is really good, Patricia, and 
vital, and a book! I only saw some of it, but I 
liked it. I’d no idea you’d got it in you, my dear. ” 
“Nobody could do anything while father was 
there; he used up all the initiative oxygen in the 
air.” 

“Well, he has bequeathed to you some of his 
power. Left it behind, I expect. He wouldn’t 
want it where he has gone. ” 

“Where has he gone? ” asked Patricia quickly. 
“Oh! gone out, you know,” and he shrugged 
his shoulders; “hard lines his going so young! 
There’ll never be another Edward Vaughan.” 

“There may be the same one,” said Patricia 
enigmatically. She wondered why she said it, 
but Caspar Faulkner made her feel vexed as well 
as pleased. 

“You’re looking prettier than ever,” he began 
boldly. “I wish you’d come and have tea with 
me again in my studio and pretend it’s old times. ” 
“But it is not,” she replied with a touch of 
coldness, for Patricia was more fastidious than 
she used to be, and Caspar’s tone jarred. He was 
a middle-aged man, and had a quite nice, unselfish, 
uninteresting wife; but he always flirted with 
attractive women, and made cheap love to good- 
looking girls. He was an artist of no mean reputa- 
tion, and there was a certain charm about his 


In London 


355 


daring, irresponsible ways. Patricia used to enjoy 
flirting with him and had let him make love to her; 
she had pretended to be angry when he kissed her, 
and she had often gone to his studio. He had 
sketched her in a dozen ways, and they had played 
at platonic friendship, the only charm of which lies 
in the part that is not platonic. One day he had 
persuaded her to pose to him with her hair down, 
and she had seen the dangerous fire that passion 
lights in a man’s eyes. Caspar was only beginning 
again where he had left off, but Patricia had passed 
another way since then. All that kind of thing 
was out of drawing in the Carletons’ set, and 
slightly jarred on her sharpened sensibilities. 

“My book is rather scandalous,’’ she said. 

“How delightful! I shall adore you as a 
scandalmonger, Patricia. You always were a 
reckless little daredevil, ready to defy God and 
man. Gad ! how the book will sell ! Crawley told 
me they had got a good thing. But I never 
thought you were quite so clever, my dear, though 
I always knew you were a darling. ’’ 

Patricia shied, as a well-bred horse will at some- 
thing out of proportion. 

“How is Alicia?’’ she asked; “and I suppose the 
boy is growing up?” 

Caspar was quick enough to see what the al- 
lusion to his wife and son meant. 

“She has a cottage down in the country. She 
hates town as much as I love it. Tim is at Hailey- 
bury.” 


356 


Patricia 


“Is he turning out clever?” Patricia asked. 

“No,” said his father disdainfully. “He's the 
image of his mother, and can’t spell art. I’d 
have liked a daughter like you, Patricia, with 
wonderful eyes and kissable lips. ” 

“There are some more people coming in, and I 
must help with the tea,” said Patricia. “Good- 
bye, Caspar. What ages ago the old times seem!” 

“Will you come and see me?” 

“Perhaps. If I can.” 

Patricia felt as if she wanted to wash her hands. 
“ Caspar has grown a bit common, ” she said to her- 
self ; but, as a matter of fact, Caspar had stood still. 

“Dick tells me that Father Wain wright is 
preaching this evening after all,” said Lady Hen- 
rietta, * ‘ in the East End. Rather an excursion, but 
I feel that it will be just what I require in the cool 
of the evening. Don’t come, Patricia, unless you 
like. Dick is not at our church at all today or I 
should have gone there once, of course. ” 

“I would like to come,” replied Patricia. And 
she enjoyed the taxi drive down through the echo- 
ing, empty streets of the world’s great mart, and 
saw the picturesqueness of the City when it has 
breathing-space to stand still. 

“You say that people don’t go to church in 
London,” said Patricia, “but every church I’ve 
been to is bursting with people.” 

“A good preacher will always fill a church. 
This one is poorly attended as a rule, but look at it 
tonight. ” 


In London 


357 


Again Patricia had a rare intellectual treat, and 
again she felt those strong stirrings of her inner 
being which were incomprehensible and strange. 
But Father Wainwright’s style was utterly unlike 
Jim’s. The former was caustic, and clever, and 
cynical, and strong, and hard as steel. Welling- 
borough was sympathetic and understanding and 
idealistic and compelling. The diction of both 
was finished, but Jim’s was the more simple and 
natural of the two. Both were perfect speakers in 
technique and both had something more to give 
than they themselves could offer. Hence they 
were both great preachers. The more congrega- 
tional singing of an evening service was less to 
Patricia’s taste than the choir production in the 
morning, but it was more to Lady Henrietta’s. 

“That is just a matter of temperament,” the 
latter explained, “for I am not really musical and 
I love to hear humanity speaking, or rather singing, 
its mind.” 

“I adored that boy’s exquisite voice that was 
just flying through the anthem this morning. It 
was so high and wonderful it seemed to come from 
out of sight.” 

“ He is a wicked little imp,” said Lady Henrietta. 
“Jim says he will thrash him as soon as his voice 
breaks. But it thrills me much more to hear a lot 
of middle-aged, middle-class, ordinary, Sunday- 
coated men singing Rock of Ages. Then I am 
not musical. I am often thankful I am not, for 
really musical people seem to suffer so much from 


35 * 


Patricia 


pains in their inside. I see them wincing and 
flinching and groaning in spirit, through nine per- 
formances out of every ten, with which I have been 
delighted. I suppose they get their ecstatic mo- 
ments to make up?” 

There was a very merry and unconventional 
dinner party that evening. Some had evening 
dress, some came in just as they were. Lady 
Henrietta put on a dinner gown, but the Arch- 
deacon still wore his boots and gaiters. 

There were three very clean, spruce boys, one 
from Eton and two from Oxford, whose dress 
clothes were absolutely immaculate, and there 
were four tired curates who had come in straight 
from different churches. A head-master, who was 
preaching up in town, brought a hatted wife, and 
a professor of philosophy at Oxford, of the mature 
age of twenty-four, dropped in unexpectedly. A 
thorough holiday feeling prevailed. The Arch- 
deacon told funny tales, and the head-master’s 
wife capped them. Everybody made jokes and 
told ridiculous stories. 

“When I come here on a Sunday night,” 
said Wellingborough, “and give my hat and um- 
brella to the man in the hall, I always feel inclined 
to add ‘ and hang up my harp also. ’ For that is 
exactly what we all do here. ” 

“ I asked Father Wain wright to come back with 
us,” said Lady Henrietta, “but he was going to 
dine with a duchess to meet royalty. I scolded 
him the other day for not being able to come here 


In London 


359 


because he was commanded so often to dine with 
royalty, and he said, 1 If they want good society 
why shouldn’t they have it? ’ Wasn’t that just like 
him?” 

“I am simply exhausted with Red-Crossing,” 
said the head-master’s wife. “ It is a perfect mania 
in the country. I preside at meetings till I be- 
come quite comatose. I could easily pass an 
ambulance examination with my eyes shut.” 

“Just as I get at weddings,” said the Arch- 
deacon. “I have performed so many marriages 
that I have arrived at the point now of thinking 
that all bridesmaids are dressed exactly alike in a 
sort of uniform.” 

“Oh, Dick! How can you!” reproved his wife, 
“and there were never two lots alike. ” 

“You people who live in London miss a great 
deal,” continued Mrs. Wilbraham, “that is most 
funny and refreshing. I was at a little Committee 
meeting the other day which a dear, good lady 
always opens with prayer, and she prayed that 
Providence might preside over our counsels and 
guide our deliberations with power and wisdom 
from on high. And if you’d seen the agenda paper, 
why, an ordinary illiterate could easily have 
managed it without any interposition of Provi- 
dence at all! There wasn’t a question that I 
couldn’t decide off my own bat with no strain 
even on my elementary common-sense. Now had 
that prayer been offered at a Cabinet there might 
have been some point in it. ” 


360 


Patricia 


“ How delightful ! But funny things are always 
happening to you, ” said Lady Henrietta. 

“Not more to me than to everyone else — only 
I stop to see them. And you need a sense of 
humour when you live among men as much as I 
do — a husband, and three sons, and eighty board- 
ers, to say nothing of the other masters ! I tremble 
to think where I should be if I hadn’t generally a 
laugh at my command; but there is one comfort 
about being the only woman in a house — whatever 
goes wrong you know who is to blame — it is 
always the woman’s fault.” And Mrs. Wilbra- 
ham laughed her merry, fat laugh. 

“How is the magazine getting on?” asked her 
hostess. “Mrs. Wilbraham takes in the Girls' 
Guide , and she culls much that is worth having 
from that priceless source.” 

“Oh! I am glad you have reminded me. 
There was the best answer to correspondence last 
week that even I have ever seen. It was to ‘ anx- 
ious enquirer ’ and ran as follows : — 

“'The Doctrine of the Trinity is not a suitable 
subject for discussion in a public paper, but will 
be fully explained on receipt of a penny stamp;’ 
(note the semicolon only) ‘the lump in your 
throat will be removed by an alum gargle.*” 
Everybody shouted. 

“That beats your last which ran: — ‘There are 
other ways of serving the Lord than by marrying 
a black man,’” said Lady Henrietta, wiping her 
eyes. 


In London 


361 


“ I saw rather a nice In Memoriam in the Times 
the other day, ” said Jim. “It said 1 she did no harm 
to those who loved her. ’ Why, the woman 
would have been no better than a wild animal if 
she had!” 

Patricia felt about fifteen that evening. She 
laughed with the boys, and attempted impossible 
puzzles, and was hungry, and happy as a child. 
In looking back she thought she had never spent 
a more delightful day — there was only one spoiling 
speck in it and that was Caspar Faulkner’s call. 

When Patricia’s visit to the Carletons’ was 
drawing to a close her book was published. The 
parcel of advance copies had just arrived when she 
sought her hostess in the boudoir. 

“I am miserable,” said Patricia candidly, “and 
frightened. Do tell me what I can do?” 

“ What ever is the matter, my dear? Look here, 
the papers are giving you a preliminary puff. I 
should be fearfully proud if I were bringing out a 
book tomorrow.” 

“But you don’t understand. I have put in 
something I ought not, and Jim will be angry. I 
can’t explain. Read this chapter yourself and 
then you will know. ” 

Lady Henrietta took the book with a reassuring 
smile. 

“ I am sure you are exaggerating, dear. Don’t 
look so wretched, ” and then she sat down to 
read. 

But as she read her face clouded, and the room 


362 


Patricia 


was very still. When silence is audible it is very 
ominous, and Patricia’s heart sank within her. 
At last her friend laid down the volume. 

“ Oh! why did you do it?” she said sadly. 

“I did it for gain and profit and a few other 
equally horrid things. I didn’t know Jim then, 
of course. But oh! I would give my right hand 
not to have done it now!” 

“But you have told him about it?” exclaimed 
Lady Henrietta. 

“No, I haven’t,” said Patricia hopelessly. 
“I daren’t.” 

“You foolish, foolish child! He might have 
forgiven you then. ” 

“No, he wouldn’t. Jim would never forgive me 
for anything, I know. That is why I am so 
frightened and miserable. ” 

“Well, let us see what is to be done, ” said Lady 
Henrietta practically; “and there is one thing 
certain. You must tell him tonight before the 
book is actually out tomorrow.” 

“I daren’t,” said Patricia, looking the picture 
of woe. 

“My dear, you mustn’t be foolish. It is much 
too critical a moment for any further mistake. 
But first let me understand exactly what induced 
you to do it.” 

“The publishers offered me immense advance 
royalties if I did, and bound me to secrecy until 
the publication. ” 

“Cads!” exclaimed her ladyship, “but that is 


In London 363 

a trifle better, Patricia. You were bound by a 
promise. ” 

“But I should have told Jim all the same if I’d 
dared. I nearly did once or twice, only then he 
said something and put me off. ” 

“Perhaps you didn’t realize that such letters as 
these ought never to have been published — ought 
never to have been written even? ” 

“I did — and what is the worst part, I didn’t 
care. I don’t care now, ” sobbed the girl, “except 
that I know Jim will be angry. ” 

“ But it is dishonourable to publish letters of that 
kind — and you were bound by law even to have 
asked Jim’s permission, as they were from his 
father, even if the awfulness of them had not pre- 
vented your thinking of doing so.” Lady Henri- 
etta was amazed. She did not know how to cope 
with such an unprecedented state of affairs. 

“ It was nothing to me — an old man’s horridness! 
And my father’s replies are splendid. I wanted the 
chance of showing them up like that. It would 
have been all right if only Jim had not been his 
son. ” 

“No, Patricia,” said Lady Henrietta slowly, 
“that is just where you are wrong. It could never 
have been all right for any one to have published 
a private correspondence containing scandalous 
matter. Even if you had permission to have done 
so, can’t you see how dishonourable it would have 
been, and that nothing, nothing ought to have 
made it possible?” 


3^4 


Patricia 


“I never thought about things being right or 
wrong,” Patricia owned. “I either wanted to do 
them, or I didn’t, and that settled it.” 

“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” almost wringing her 
hands. “ I can’t make you see that the horridness 
is in doing a horrid thing, not in what anybody 
will think of it.” 

“Not anybody, only Jim,” interposed Patricia. 
“I don’t care a hang for the rest of the world. I 
detest a cousin of Jim’s who is the old man’s 
niece, and I shall be glad if she is vexed. ” 

“ Patricia, dear. I am afraid to let you see Jim, 
and I am equally afraid not to! What shall we 
do?” 

“I don’t know,” said Patricia; “it is all hope- 
less ! The letters did not seem so bad when I put 
them in, — I mean it didn’t seem so bad to have 
put them in. ” 

“Of course they are frightfully interesting and 
thrilling,” said Lady Henrietta, “I can see that. 
And of course they will sell your book by thousands. 
But you must see this, Patricia; it is like stealing 
something to have published them without Jim’s 
permission. You have sold his father’s reputa- 
tion behind his back. Surely you knew that it 
wasn’t cricket to do that?” 

“Yes, I knew, in a sort of hazy way — but I 
never dreamed it would really matter.” 

“Wrongdoing always really matters, my dear. 
I wish you saw that.” 

“And ‘the son,’ as I called him in my mind, was 


In London 


365 


such an unreal, nebulous sort of person that it 
never struck me that he could matter either. ” 

“But other people always matter, too. Oh, 
Patricia, I wish you had some principles to build 
on! It makes everything so slippery and unsafe 
when goodness and straightness are a mere happen- 
ing, and not the essence of life. You don’t even 
know the things that aren’t done, and that makes 
everything so difficult. I wish I knew how to help 
you. ” 

Patricia looked at her friend’s troubled face and 
something outside herself stirred her. 

“ It is a shame to bother you like this, dear Lady 
Henrietta. Never mind any more about it. I 
will see Jim, and I will tell him myself. The worst 
will have happened then, and nothing can be worse 
than the worst. And then I will go home. He 
will never forgive me, I know, for forgiveness is 
quite different in practical life and in the pulpit. 
I have sometimes hoped it might not be — I hoped 
it when I heard Jim preach — but it was too much 
to hope. ” 

“ I will send him up to you here when he comes, 
Patricia. He said he would call after tea. The 
Archdeacon and I are dining out,” she added 
tactfully, “and I daresay you’d rather have some- 
thing sent up on a tray. I love to have you here, 
my dear, but I think it will be best perhaps for 
you to go home. And I hope and pray that some 
day you will come back again and things will be 
put right. ” 


366 


Patricia 


“ Do you pray about things like that?” 

“Of course. One prays about everything. It 
is the only real help, you know. ” 

“How nice it must be to believe in something 
that can help.” 

“Not something, dear — Someone. I do not 
want laws or tendencies or any other thing. I 
want what I have got, a living, loving, under- 
standing Personality. And it is a mystery to 
me how people can live at all without that 
Presence.” 

Patricia kissed her friend. 

“Well, pray for me,” she said wistfully. 

When Lord Wellingborough came Patricia met 
him as he entered the room with her book in her 
hand. 

“Don’t kiss me, Jim,” she said sadly, “until 
you have heard what I have to say. Here is my 
book. In it I have published your father’s 
private letters to mine. The publishers wanted 
them because they are saleable and scandalous. 
They tempted me with a big bribe, and — and — 
I took it.” 

Wellingborough’s face went very white. 

“I hardly understand,” he said between his 
teeth. 

“You won’t be able to, ever,” she replied, and 
her voice sounded lost and hollow. “ It was before 
I knew you, and, because you were a parson, I did 
not care.” 

“You don’t mean those letters about the war?” 


In London 


367 


he suddenly cried, and the sweat broke out on his 
forehead. 

“Yes — those, and a lot of others. They were 
among my father’s papers. I promised I would 
tell nobody until the book came out — that was in 
the bond — and I have kept it. But I should have 
told you if I hadn’t been afraid. I wanted to once 
or twice, — but then I daren’t. And I am glad I 
didn’t,” she added passionately, “for I have had 
my glimpse of happiness, and though you can take 
everything else from me, you can’t take away the 
memory of that. ” 

Jim passed his hand over his forehead. 

“Thank God my mother is not alive,” he said 
shortly; “it would have killed her. She never 
knew of my father’s dishonour, and that is why 
she made me write his Life. ” 

“Does dishonour matter so frightfully?” asked 
Patricia. 

Her lover looked at her in amazement. 

“There is only one alternative — death. But 
I can’t talk,” he added in a queer hoarse voice 
which frightened Patricia beyond all fear that she 
had ever known. “I must go, — I must go, — for 
— I dare not trust myself to speak now!” and he 
dashed out of the room and was gone, while she 
stood fixed and almost unconscious from the 
shock. 

The next day London rang with the fame of 
Patricia’s book. The world shrugged its shoulders 
at what it termed her delightful indiscretions, and 


368 


Patricia 


it ate up with avidity all the astounding revelations 
of hidden intrigue. 

Her vivid, natural writing, the skill of her por- 
traiture the whole charm of Edward Vaughan’s per- 
sonality which she brought to life again, stamped 
her book as a great biography; for genius alone 
could have given to the world such a vital and 
eternal picture of a man whose name was already 
fading from the memories of men, except of the 
very few who had been his best admirers and 
friends. The reviewers piled up their paeans of 
praise; the booksellers sold faster than they could 
pack up ; the social, political, literary world talked 
for a time of nothing else; and the publishers 
rubbed their hands over the success of their own 
perspicacity, and the money that was consequently 
pouring in. Patricia was a girl, said society in- 
dulgently, and of course she never realized the 
enormity of including the correspondence of the 
old Lord Wellingborough; and for its part, it was 
very glad she had not, otherwise those choice and 
thrilling morsels would have never seen the light. 
And everybody wondered what the young Lord 
Wellingborough would say, and whether the en- 
gagement would be broken off ? The literary world 
was delighted with the book as a work of art, and 
they, too, liked it none the less for its poisonous pi- 
quancy, seeing that the whole thing was done so 
well. The political world gloated over these open 
secrets, and said they had suspected as much all 
along. The religious world thought it a pity that 


In London 


369 


Lord Wellingborough was engaged to a girl like 
that, who was as unscrupulous as she was clever; 
but they supposed now that the engagement would 
be at an end and so perhaps it was all for the best 
that it had happened. Better find out her lack 
of principle before it was too late. So everybody 
talked about poor Patricia, but all the glory and 
honour and sweetness of her success were embit- 
tered because she heard nothing from Jim. Even 
the enormous cheque in her cash box lay neglected 
and forgotten in the greatness of her grief. She 
longed and ached to hear what he had to say, even 
though the hurt of it would almost kill her. She 
thought about him till his features faded from her 
realization, and she had lost even the remembrance 
of his face. And Patricia hated her much-loved 
book. She always hated whatever was connected 
in her mind with trouble and distress. 

“ London doesn’t seem to have suited Patricia, ” 
said Maggie candidly, as her cousin grew thinner 
and paler and sadder every day. “I can’t under- 
stand it. And what with her book coming out, and 
all being such a great success. It is perfectly as- 
tonishing to me what the reviewers see in it. ” 

“ Perhaps she has quarrelled with Lord Welling- 
borough,” suggested Agnes. “I notice that Pa- 
tricia hardly ever mentions his name. ” 

“It would be like her recklessness to do so,” 
replied Maggie. “Perhaps she expects a duke 
next!” and she gave a meaning little sniff. 

“I am sure she is unhappy, Maggie.” 


04 


370 


Patricia 


^ It is of her own doing, you mark my words, and 
therefore she deserves all the unhappiness she gets. 
Yet she wrote so enthusiastically to mother from 
London.” 

“Something has happened, I feel sure.” 

“Perhaps Lord Wellingborough doesn’t like 
that part in the book about his father,” said 
Maggie, drawing a bow at a venture. 

“Oh! a man who is in love would never mind 
about that,” said Agnes, whose idea of love came 
quite up to the divine standard. That is one of 
the compensations that come to people who don’t 
have things; they believe in them so sublimely, 
and a noble belief is a great possession. 

“Oh, Patricia!” exclaimed Aunt Lucy, laying 
down the book and removing her spectacles from 
her nose. 1 ‘ I never can believe that you wrote this 
all yourself. It is wonderful. How astonishingly 
clever you are, my love!” 

“I wish I was good instead of clever,” said her 
niece. 

“Thank God you feel that, my love. To think 
that my prayers should be answered so soon!” 

“Have you been praying for me, too?” said 
Patricia with a sad little smile. “I am afraid it 
has been rather a waste of time. It doesn’t seem 
to have done much. ” 

Aunt Lucy looked amazed. 

“Prayers are never a waste of time and if you 
want to be good, my dear, they have done a great 
deal. That is the first step. ” 


In London 


37i 


Patricia shook her head. “I don’t want to be 
good for a nice reason, ” she said humbly. 

“Never mind about the reason. The fact is 
enough for me. And you will be good, my dear, 
you mark my words.” 

“It will be too late then, dear aunt.” 

“It is never too late for goodness,” said Aunt 
Lucy, and she clasped her niece in her arms. 


CHAPTER XIV 


THROUGH DEEP WATERS 

“ Lucy, ” called the rector as he came in from the 
village one day, “Lucy, my dear!” 

His wife came running downstairs with her 
usual speed, but her face looked a little anxious. 

“Is anything the matter?” she hurriedly asked, 
and then she gave a little laugh and added, “How 
foolish I am! — but you do not generally call ‘my 
dear, * and it sounded as if something might have 
upset you.” 

Uncle George responded to her smile and held 
out his hand, and together they walked into the 
old well-worn study, — Aunt Lucy’s face a little 
pale and anxious at the unusual touch of tender- 
ness that seemed to her to forebode ill. So quick 
are wives to read the riddle of their husband’s 
ways. 

“My dear,” he said again as they sat down in 
the old worn chairs, “I wanted to tell you that the 
Call has come. ” 

“Are you going to leave Lynfield?” his wife 
asked aghast, for such a thought had never entered 
her head. 


372 


373 


Through Deep Waters 


“Yes, ” he replied simply, “and, Lucy, you must 
not mind overmuch.” 

“ I shall not mind as long as we are together.” 

‘‘But that is just the only hard bit about it, my 
dear. We shall not be together — for a while.” 

“George, what do you mean?” and her voice 
broke with a sharp fear. “I don’t understand 
you.” 

“ I have not been well, Lucy, for some time, and 
then it seemed to pass off again. But today I 
called and let the doctor have a look at me, — and 
it is my heart. It may stop any day now, and so 
I know my Master is almost ready to call me to 
Himself. ” 

“Oh! George, my husband! my love!” and tears 
rained down Aunt Lucy’s face. 

“ It may not be just yet if I am careful, and don’t 
hurry and run risks. But then again it may. So 
I thought, my dear, that we would just face it 
together now, and then when we are both ready, 
and our real good-bye is over, we will go on just as 
usual, and wait His time. Let us pray. ” 

Together they knelt by the old study table, and 
the only words that Aunt Lucy could find were 
just “my dear, dear husband! ” but her prayer was 
answered nevertheless. She felt the only Touch 
that can ever comfort in sorrow, or strengthen in 
weakness, or heal in despair. 

And Uncle George from force of habit said a 
collect. His tongue was slow to find original 
words. And then they knelt in silence and their 


374 


Patricia 


tears flowed together — hers in a flood and his in 
hard difficult drops — and neither spoke. But that 
they listened, and heard, was proved by the fact 
that the rector suddenly answered, “Even so, come 
Lord Jesus,” and he gently kissed his wife on the 
lips, while Aunt Lucy added brokenly, “Amen.” 

“And now it is dinner-time, ” said Uncle George ; 
“we must not be late, nor let the children know 
before they need. ” And somehow neither of them 
would have been astonished if they had found 
little girls with tightly-plaited pigtails and blue 
pinafores seated at the table instead of two middle- 
aged women. For suddenly they both felt young 
again. Perhaps it was the lover’s kiss on the lips, 
perhaps it was the glimmering light of the dawn of 
eternal youth, which lifted them both above the 
everyday, old, ordinary feelings with which long 
lives are usually filled. 

“I think,” said Uncle George, “that I will read 
a novel this afternoon if you can find me one, my 
dear.” 

“I have no new ones, but perhaps Patricia 
has.” 

“I do not think that Patricia’s novels would 
interest me. I am too old-fashioned for modem 
things. But the old ones will be new enough. It 
is so long since I looked at one. Will you get me 
one of Scott’s, Lucy, and I shall feel almost like a 
boy again.” 

A sob caught in his wife’s throat. 

“Oh, George! — how can you read a novel on a 


Through Deep Waters 375 


day like this? I couldn’t fix my attention on a 
single page. ” 

“This day is really no different, my dear. I 
have tried to live each day of my life in readiness 
to obey my Master’s Call, and every day that Call 
has come to this or that duty which He had for me 
to do. And so today, when He tells me that my 
work here is nearly over, and He wants me for 
higher work and greater happiness nearer to God, 
there is no difference in my attitude. I am still 
ready, still willing, and more even than that, dear 
wife, I am uplifted by the Touch of Christ Himself, 
the Touch we feel in face of the great experien- 
ces of life — a birth, a marriage, or a death — for 
death is but an experience of life, you know, 
Lucy.” 

“ I should not mind at all if it was me instead of 
you,” she cried softly. 

“ But I should mind much more. Do not grudge 
me the happiness of going first.” 

And then his wife’s whole outlook changed. 
The divine unselfishness of a woman’s love inspired 
her afresh, and the motherhood which is hidden in 
all women’s hearts broke out anew. 

“Forgive me, George,” she said, “for thinking 
of myself. We will neither mind, my dear, because 
it is — it must be — all for the best. For you could 
never have got on without me if I had gone first, 
and it would have broken my heart to think of you 
blundering along all by yourself. No, my dear, 
I couldn’t, couldn’t have trusted you to any one 


376 


Patricia 


but God, and now that you are going to Him I 
know it will be all right. ” 

“Thank you, dear wife. And thank God 
also that He has so ordained it. You’ve spoiled 
me, Lucy, until I really cannot manage alone. ” 
“And you shan’t have to,” and Aunt Lucy 
clasped him close. “I’ll never loose you until 
I can give your hand into God’s. And then — 
why then, my love, you needn’t fret for me. I’ll 
surely be content for the little while until we meet 
again.” 

So the rector and his wife said their last farewell, 
and then they went into the dining-room and ate 
roast mutton, and talked of parochial matters with 
such quiet, undisturbed faces that their daughters 
saw nothing unusual below the surface. 

“You seem to have taken a little cold, mother, ” 
said Agnes, “your eyes and nose look inflamed. ” 

‘ ‘ Eucalyptus ! ’ ’ advised Maggie promptly. “And 
if you are not better tonight put your feet into 
mustard and water. ” 

The summer days rolled by and there was a hush 
over the land of Lynfield Rectory. One of those 
quiet resting times that come by the way, where 
green pastures abound and wherein we are led by 
still waters. There was the shadow of sorrow over 
several lives, but the shadow was as of a great Rock 
in a weary land. It was a shadow in which lay 
peace and rest and healing. Patricia’s trouble was 
as real as, and far more hopeless than, Aunt Lucy’s, 
because hers was one of the troubles of the young, 


Through Deep Waters 377 

and they are sharp and cruel and bitter, and are 
not mingled with the sweetening waters of age and 
experience. And though neither knew of the 
other’s grief, some hidden sympathy drew them 
close together, and Patricia learned to wait and 
to submit, and even to pray queer, halting, uncon- 
ventional prayers to that Unknown God whom the 
Athenians worshipped of old. But as yet there was 
no sign from Jim. 

He, too, was passing through a very bitter time. 
At first he was blindly angry. To hurt a man’s 
honour is very much like hurting a woman’s 
child. He will turn round in a fury which is purely 
primitive and which therefore lies at the very root 
of human nature. But by and by that dies away, 
and a more reasonable state of mind supervenes. 
Wellingborough began to look at the matter in all 
its bearings, and to try to understand Patricia’s 
part in it. Be it said to his credit, that though he 
was as angry as it was possible for a man to be — 
sore from a wanton wound on his tenderest sus- 
ceptibilities, and smarting from the stinging hurt of 
such a blow — he never considered the possibility of 
breaking his engagement with Patricia. They were 
promised to each other, and so he had to share in a 
measure the blame of the dishonour which ate into 
his very heart, and so was his pain doubly intensi- 
fied. If he could have cast her out of his life he 
would at that time have been conscious of a real 
relief — but Jim was no coward to run away, nor to 
leave the burden to the weaker one, even though 


378 


Patricia 


she had herself created it. It was because he 
already in his heart shared Patricia’s life that he 
was so angry with her, and she was still the woman 
he loved even though she had acted wrongly. 
It would, to Wellingborough, have been far easier 
to forgive if she had not been. 

Even when his great friend Henrietta Carleton 
tried to speak to him of Patricia in affectionate 
defence, he courteously silenced her. He would 
not let any one plead to him for Patricia, for the 
place whereon she stood, and fell, was holy ground. 
To two men only he deigned to reply — one was the 
Prime Minister and the other his Bishop; and 
to them he almost washed Patricia white. She 
was young, and excitable, and did not understand 
what she was doing, and her publishers unscrupu- 
lously played on her want of knowledge, and 
tempted her with too big a bribe for a girl to know 
how to refuse. And the silence to which they had 
in self-defence bound her, cut off from her any way 
of escape after she had met himself and they had 
become engaged. But as the very clock struck 
which absolved her from her promise she told him 
all about it, but it was too late. The poor child 
was heart-broken about it now she realized what 
she had done. Of course he minded, but it was 
true, and the dead must bury their dead, and if 
better was a live dog than a dead lion, how much 
better was a living lamb than a dead lion. No 
one really was hurt by it, except his own family 
pride, for all the people involved were now gone — 


Through Deep Waters 379 

and so would these great men each tell his world 
the simple truth, and save Patricia from unjust 
condemnation? 

And as Jim Wellingborough convinced his 
hearers, he also convinced himself, for nobody 
can convince anybody of anything until he himself 
is satisfied. 

So as he came to realize these things a well of 
tenderness was struck in his heart, and little trick- 
ling drops broke out over the hard surface, and 
began to melt his arid feelings into something of 
their old fruitfulness. 

Patricia was such a lonely figure, orphaned of 
her earthly father, ignorant of her Heavenly One. 
A girl who had never known a mother, or a sister’s 
sweet comradeship . So brilliant and attractive, with 
all the charm and danger of genius in her character, 
and yet so unequipped for the real business of life. 
She was like a beautiful minstrel boy wandering 
alone on a battlefield, listening to the magic music 
of his harp and heedless of the whistling bullets 
which every instant threatened his destruction, or 
the ambushed enemy who were only awaiting his 
capture. Her life had been spent in perpetual dan- 
ger, from others, and, most of all, from herself. She 
was so careless and so reckless and so rudderless. 
And now because she had fallen and hurt her- 
self, and all the sweets of real literary success were 
scattered in the mud, — as a child who falls lets 
go its treasures and they are spoiled, — was it a 
worthy thing to stand still and do nothing for her, 


380 


Patricia 


was it a possible thing to pass by on the other side? 

“No, by God, it isn’t!” said Jim, and the oath on 
his lips was mighty as an organ’s roll. “It is 
when we are weak, and erring, and alone, and sad 
that love is proved. Thus Christ’s Love was made 
manifest, of which our love is a fragment.” 

And Jim bowed his head upon his hands and 
there was silence. That night he wrote a great 
sermon on the text, “Lest I who preach to others 
should myself become a castaway.” “Only I 
will put prig for castaway, ” said Jim to himself — 
“there is more danger of that in these days!” 

“If you please, miss, ” said Martha, putting her 
head in at Patricia’s bedroom door. It was one 
of Martha’s peculiarities that her head always 
advanced a considerable distance in front of her 
person, and therefore appeared constantly as if 
out on its own. “Lord Wellingborough ’as called 
to see you and is in the droring-room. ” 

Patricia caught at the dressing-table to steady 
herself. It was so unexpected, and all her strength 
was gone. During the long silence of weeks, 
though she had been really hopeless in her mind, 
one tiny gleam of hope had lingered in the farthest 
away comer of her heart, and she felt now that 
she would infinitely rather have gone on thus, than 
face the break as an actual accomplished fact. 
Her heart beat so fast that the room seemed full 
of noise, and her face, always pale, was whitened 
into living alabaster. 


Through Deep Waters 381 


“My, you do look bad!” exclaimed Martha. 
“I ’ad a sister onst who looked just like you and 
she was a corpse in three days. ” 

When Patricia opened the drawing-room door 
she could not see her lover — a red mist rolled 
before her eyes and reality seemed far away. And 
then she suddenly felt the comforting crushing of 
a strong man’s arms, as Jim clasped her to him. 

“Is it good-bye?” she whispered. 

“ No, it is good-morning,” he answered tenderly. 
“A new day, my darling, that has dawned for us 
both.” 

“Have you come back to be engaged again?” 
she asked incredulously. 

“ I never went away. What do you mean about 
our engagement, dearest?” 

“I thought you’d broken it off.” 

“Oh, Patricia! how could you?” 

“But you did go away, Jim.” 

“A man always goes away at the time when he is 
angry — but it is not to stay, sweetheart. Anger 
is a thing that cannot last, because there is nothing 
of God in it. But love does, because it is all 
made up of God, you know.” 

“Oh, Jim!” exclaimed Patricia brokenly, “it 
is just heaven to feel your arms again and the touch 
of your cheek against mine. And will you really 
forgive me?” 

“I have forgiven you, darling. That is why I 
could come.” 

“I know there’s no real excuse, but I wouldn’t 


382 


Patricia 


have done it for any money if I had known you 
first. You have just made all the difference, Jim. 
For before I knew you I never realized that there is 
a noblesse oblige of character as well as of rank. 
But I do now. And even — even if you didn’t 
love me any longer,” her lips trembled, “I should 
still want to be good. The other side is so squalid 
and ugly.” 

“I have lots more to say,” she added after an 
interval, “only you are holding me so tight I can’t 
say it.” 

“ Don’t try to, my own. We shall have the rest 
of our lives to finish our talk in — and I want to 
kiss you now. ” 

“And, darling,” said Jim when they heard the 
tea-bell, “don’t think I am blind to the beauty 
and brilliance of your book. I love it because it is 
all instinct with you. You have in it. made men 
love your father in spite of, or rather because of, 
his very faults and failings — and that is how I 
see you in it now, dear heart, and why I love you 
in it so. Wrongdoing is a blot, but I have found 
in you through it, no counsel of perfection such 
as I used to picture as an ideal, but a living, 
real woman whom I want as my wife, and love 
much, perhaps because she has been forgiven 
much. So the book will ever be sacred to me — 
and to you. It is a great piece of work, and through 
it we have both been led into deep waters; but, 
Patricia, don’t you see, it was the depth of the 
water that taught us how to swim.” 


Through Deep Waters 383 


For the next few days Jim Wellingborough was 
in a great fuss over Patricia’s health, in which he 
was singularly like a man. It was his own action 
that had reduced Patricia to a physical rag, for 
she had eaten and slept little since they parted in 
London, and then when he came back to her he 
was agonized because she was not as well as when 
he went away. She certainly looked extremely 
white and frail, and was content just to sit still 
and sample her happiness, instead of dancing and 
singing in it as she used to do. Jim even began to 
long for a spice of the devil to reappear in his lady 
love, for Patricia was not herself without it, and 
he felt anxious about her. Such anxiety was, how- 
ever, extremely good for Wellingborough, for, 
like most men, he was thoroughly imbued with the 
idea that all women had splendid constitutions, 
and under no possible condition could do otherwise 
than outlive their husbands. 

There is no health restorer so potent as happi- 
ness, and by and by Patricia began to respond to 
it. The hot summer days grew cooler, too, and 
Jim ran down for the inside of most weeks during 
the empty time in town. In October it was 
arranged that Patricia should go and stay again 
with the Carletons, and during the autumn the 
wedding was to take place quietly in London. 
For Jim remembered Patricia’s promise to marry 
him as soon after the publication of her book as 
he liked — a promise which, by the way, was not 
fulfilled, as he would have liked to marry her the 


3§4 


Patricia 


moment after their reconciliation, — but common- 
sense interposed and he realized that she must 
have a little time in which to recover herself after 
the strain and stress of that momentous year. 
From the point of thinking that she was absolutely 
strong and well, as were all other women in his 
calculation, when convinced by her looks that she 
was not so, he leapt to the other extreme and 
tortured himself with the idea that she was dying. 
The between state with regard to women’s health, 
though so obvious, never seems to strike the mas- 
culine mind. Patricia was neither well nor dying, 
so she fixed her wedding for November and began 
to smile to herself as she made a few quite futile 
little preparations. 

It was during one of Jim’s visits, when he was 
recovering his standing ground on the cheerful as- 
sumption of Patricia’s restored wellness, that the 
Burtons’ baby, who had been recently bom in 
the dear little gamekeeper’s lodge on Patricia’s 
favourite hillside at the back of Lynfield Park, 
was stricken with mortal illness. 

The Burtons were people of position and kept a 
servant, if the minute atom of humanity adorned 
with cap and apron could rise to such a dignified 
designation, and just as service was concluding one 
evening the girl rushed into the church, hurried 
and hatless. 

“Oh, please sir!” she cried, “come quick — come 
quick! The baby is dying and the missus wants 
it baptized afore it’s too late.” 


Through Deep Waters 385 


Forgetful of all except a parishioner’s need, 
Uncle George started from the church in great 
haste, not waiting to remove his surplice nor to 
claim his hat. Up the hill he panted, trying to 
keep pace with the frightened girl, and praying 
audibly that he might be in time. He reached the 
cottage and was in time to give to the baby the seal 
and sacrament of Baptism, but the being in time 
cost him his life. 

“Oh, mum! Oh, mum!” sobbed cook, bursting 
into the room where Aunt Lucy was sitting with 
Patricia, “the rector is dead up at Burton’s. 
’Twas their baby ’as done it, and it’s dead too!’’ 

“Hush, hush!’’ said Jim, jumping up to silence 
her, while Patricia seized her aunt’s hands, and 
both looked for a great outburst of distress. 

A quiver passed over Aunt Lucy’s face. 

“ I knew it was coming, ” she said gently. “We 
were only waiting for it. Thank God he’s safe at 
Home. Will you take me to him? ’’ and she looked 
helplessly around her. 

“Bring her quietly, Patricia,” said Jim, “I will 
run on. Where are your cousins?” 

“They are both out, ” said Patricia. 

“Well, I’ll go and tell them presently,” he said 
as he rushed from the house. 

“My dear,” said Aunt Lucy as she walked up- 
stairs slowly as if old age had suddenly overtaken 
her, “do not be upset. This is no surprise to 
me, and my dear husband and I had nothing to say 
to each other. ” Patricia noticed that whereas she 


25 


386 


Patricia 


had always spoken of the rector as ‘your dear 
uncle/ now it was ‘my dear husband.’ In life 
he had belonged to many others. In death he 
was only and entirely hers. 

“But did you know he was going so soon?” 
asked Patricia amazed. 

“Each day since I knew I have thought that it 
might be that one; and I was sure it couldn’t 
be long. But whenever it was it would be best. 
And it comforts me to feel that my dear husband 
has passed into the Presence of his Lord with the 
little baby he died to bless. ” 

At the lodge door Jim met them. 

“You are not to come in, Patricia, ,, he said 
quietly, “wait for me by the gate. I will take 
Aunt Lucy in alone, and then, darling, I will come 
to you. Don’t be upset,” he added anxiously. 
“It is all peaceful and beautiful.” 

In the few minutes at his disposal Jim had done 
much. He led Aunt Lucy into the parlour where, 
in his robes and the white stole of rejoicing, Uncle 
George lay with the dead baby in his arms, just 
as he had held it for the holy rite. Some hastily- 
gathered flowers were strewed on the pillow and 
about his feet, and the golden glory of sunset 
streamed through the unshuttered window and 
touched the quiet faces with a rosy glow as of a 
new life. 

“ Good-bye for a little while, my dear, dear hus- 
band,” said Aunt Lucy softly and without a tear. 
And then she turned to the sobbing mother. 


Through Deep Waters 387 


“It is much worse for you than for me,” she 
whispered lovingly. “ I lost a little baby once, and 
so I know.” 

“I’m glad the rector has gone with him. It 
don’t seem so lonesome,” cried the poor woman 
in selfish grief. “I couldn’t have borne to have 
buried my baby alone, for he never knew what it 
was to sleep without loving arms about him. ” 

“We will leave him just where he is,” said 
Aunt Lucy softly, “so he shall still have arms 
around him until he wakes on the Resurrection 
Morning, and you can take him again yourself. ” 

“Oh! Jim,” said Patricia as they hurried down 
to the village, for Wellingborough had to find and 
tell Maggie and Agnes, and send them to their 
mother — and their father — on the hill. “I dare- 
say it is wicked, but I do blame Uncle George for 
hurrying off after that child, when he knew it might 
kill him, and leave dear aunt a widow and home- 
less. He never had any sense of proportion where 
the parish was concerned. And it did the baby 
no real good — you surely don’t believe that?” she 
added half-defiantly. 

Patricia was better. Jim felt thankful for it. 

“ I know just how you feel about it, darling, and 
in some ways I agree with you. The baby was all 
right anyhow, it hadn’t become a stranger to God 
requiring a new introduction in the few weeks 
during which He had lent it to the Burtons. But, 
Patricia, it was very fine of your uncle. He did 
not grudge the giving of his life for one of the 


388 


Patricia 


lambs of the flock — and when he was summoned 
in such haste he felt it was the Call of Christ Him- 
self ; and do you know, I am inclined to think he 
was right, and that it was. ” 

“But poor Aunt Lucy!” persisted Patricia. 
“And it is no use, Jim. Uncle George always 
irritated me in life, and he does so in death. Aunt 
Lucy might have had ever so much more happiness 
if he had gone on living. ” 

“Well, that is God’s business, dearest, and He 
will see it through. I like to feel how ready he 
was to obey — even if it was unwise readiness. Oh, 
it was fine! A hero’s death to crown a quiet, 
uneventful, narrow, niggling life, which, as you 
say, was often intensely irritating. We shall never 
know here how many heroes are hidden in common- 
place people — but an enormous number, I am 
sure.” 

“Aunt Lucy is perfectly marvellous, Jim. She 
never even cried. I simply couldn’t have lived 
through it if I had been in her place. ” 

“We never know what we can live through till 
we have to do so. Enough help always comes. ” 
“She was certainly helped somehow.” 

“Of course she was, ” said Jim. 

Maggie proved rather comforting in the face of 
so great a loss. For it was not only the loss of a 
husband and father, it meant the loss of an income 
and a home. Agnes was dissolved in sentimental 
mourning, but Maggie supported her mother and 
looked out cheerfully to the future. 


Through Deep Waters 389 


“We are young and strong and can work,” she 
said practically, “and will look after you all 
right.” 

“My dear,” said Aunt Lucy to Patricia, 
“your Jim has been everything to me, and he has 
done all I wanted without asking me a single 
question. He says the coffin shall wait in the 
church, for my dear husband went out of his home 
alive and ready to do his work, and that is how I 
must ever think of him. Just gone out of his home 
for a little while to get some work ready done 
before I join him again. Oh, Patricia how true it 
is, ‘where is death’s sting?’ It is gone, my dear, 
and all is peace and hopefulness.” 

So Aunt Lucy was wonderfully uplifted over the 
funeral day, when the whole village turned out to 
do honour to their rector, and wept as children for 
a father who is lost. 

“Uncle George seems to have done an enormous 
lot for people,” thought Patricia. “The church- 
yard is swarming with maids of all work, who seem 
to have acquired their undesirable places through 
his personal recommendation. And all the boys 
are talking about his kindness to them. And the 
whole population appears to have been incapable 
of existing, marrying, or dying without his individ- 
ual attention. I imagined he only read the Bible 
to people, but he evidently did a good deal more. 
How everyone is sobbing! — I feel like Gideon’s 
fleece on the dry turn, but I am sure half of them 
are crying because they so enjoy crying. I should 


390 


Patricia 


cry if I enjoyed it, but I don’t. It makes my eyes 
and nose red, and I feel as if I had a stuffy cold in 
my heart as well as my head whenever I indulge 
in tears. But I am sure they were realty fond of 
him, in their way, though I never should have 
been. And I don’t feel a bit different now he is 
dead. I always think it so insane to call people 
‘dear’ directly they are dead when they were far 
from dear to you when they were alive. Still, 
of course a thing often does seem dearer when it 
is done with, or rather because it is done with, just 
as the end of anything is sad, even of nasty things. 
And that sort of dearness and sadness is rather 
delightful, and I wish I could experience them a bit 
today, but I can’t. I do feel in such extraordin- 
arily good spirits, and it is realty horrid of me. 
Perhaps it is because it is such a relief to attend a 
funeral when I don’t care; at father’s I cared so 
frightfully I had to sit very still for fear of its 
showing, and it was all hideous and hateful. But 
everything is so lovely today. Of course I am 
frightfully sorry for dear Aunt Lucy, but she is so 
truly happy in her religion, and a thing like this 
does give religion a tremendous lead. And I am 
sure dear aunt will live years and years longer as 
a widow than she would have done as a wife — 
widows always do — they don’t get so overworked, 
and Uncle George was fearfully troublesome and 
never spared her anything. He got her a place as 
a maid of all work with a vengeance, and this was 
about her forty-eighth year in it with no rise of 


Through Deep Waters 391 


wages! I don’t believe Uncle George could have 
existed without her if she had died — old men never 
can without their wives — I mean nice old men ; but 
old ladies find widowhood much as the bereaved 
Scotsman did — ‘varra lonely but varra peaceful’ 
— and old people need peace more than plenty to 
live on. And that is a mercy, for Aunt Lucy 
won’t have plenty I am afraid. But Maggie 
really is turning up trumps and means to be the 
working-man of the family — and the post suits her. 
Maggie always was very like a working-man; 
like the pig in Alice she made a horrible young lady 
but she will make a very fine and worthy working- 
man. I wish to goodness somebody would marry 
Agnes. I would willingly give them a pound of tea 
in. I wonder if that deputation she kissed could 
be resurrected — only I remember she didn’t kiss 
him, but only squeezed his hand or something 
equally uncompromising. I do think with all his 
influence Jim might find a curate for her — only 
curates are so difficult to find now, he says. They 
all want to go slumming. Well, I should call it 
slumming enough to satisfy any curate to marry 
Agnes. Or perhaps he might find a missionary 
for her. Missionaries who are accustomed to 
black heathen might think Agnes fair and attrac- 
tive. Her whiteness would count as an asset, 
which it doesn’t here, as it is not superlative white- 
ness, and no pink served with it. I must consult 
Jim. Oh! I know! it isn’t the funeral, or the fine 
weather, or anything else today that makes me so 


39 2 


Patricia 


happy. It is just Jim. I do think he looks per- 
fectly divine in his robes, especially out-of-doors 
— and his lovely rose-coloured hood which is so 
becoming to any complexion. And I adore the 
sound of his voice — it is just like cold water 
trickling down your back and hot buttered 
toast in your inside, thrilling and comforting 
both at once, like Epps* cocoa, only that is 
grateful not thrilling. I can’t think how cocoa 
can be grateful. We can be grateful for it. But 
there, Jim is not like cocoa. I am not a bit grate- 
ful for him, for I should not dream of being grate- 
ful for any man. They are grateful for me. But 
I’d rather be thrilled than grateful — and oh! Jim 
is thrilling!” 

So Patricia mused, and missed thereby the 
matchless music of the funeral service. She only 
heard her lover’s voice — but then she was very 
ignorant and young, and her ears were not opened 
yet, just like a kitten’s eyes. But Aunt Lucy 
heard something more, and she was the one who 
really mattered. 

As she was coming from the church-yard 
Patricia met the Muirfields again. 

“I am deeply grieved for your dear aunt,” said 
Lady Muirfield, “so sweet and calm she looked,” 
and then, because Uncle George’s influence was 
so much more compelling in his death than in 
his life, she added, “I am glad to hear of your 
happiness, Patricia. Be good to your aunt. ” 

Even Golly was there — looking stiff and awk- 


Through Deep Waters 393 


ward in his black clothes, and in the presence of 
death, feeling just like an Eton boy again in the 
presence of the head-master. He even wore his 
silk hat again just as he used to in those old school 
days, rammed down on to his ears, and he felt 
uncomfortable and guilty just as he always did 
when the Head was about. 

“I’ve read your book,” he said to Patricia, “and 
it is about the biggest book I ever did read. You 
touched up my mother a bit on the raw about that 
wicked old uncle of hers, who she always pre- 
tended to us was a regular paragon! Not the 
thing for us to know anything different, in case 
we put down our own peccadilloes to a bit of bad 
blood! But it’s jolly good, Patricia. I wasn’t a 
bit bored. I’d liked to have known your father!” 

“Oh, Golly! how nice of you to say that! It 
is what I wanted everybody to feel.” 

“They’d a jolly sight rather know you, my dear. 
Oh, I say! I oughtn’t to call you that now, I 
suppose. It is horrid of you to be going to marry 
somebody else. I shall never get over it. ” 

“You have got over it now,” said Patricia with 
a little laugh, and then she exclaimed in consterna- 
tion, “Oh! I ought not to be laughing at Uncle 
George’s funeral either. How it would have 
shocked him!” 

“Is your Johnnie a shocker?” asked Golly. 
“Somehow I don’t see you as a parson’s wife, 
Patricia!” 

“There are parsons and parsons,” she replied. 


394 


Patricia 


“I used to put my full stop before the and , and 
that was a big mistake.” 

“Oh! of course there is always an and. There 
are soldiers and soldiers, you know, like me and 
Lord Kitchener ! ” 

“I say, Patricia,” he added as they walked 
along the rectory avenue, “is Jim Wellingborough 
the chap you meant at the ball, that you liked, 
you know?” 

“ Yes, ” she replied simply. “ I fell in love with 
him at first sight. I couldn’t help it. ” 

“Gad! what luck some fellows have! And not 
half such a deserving case as mine either. I wish 
you’d have fallen in love with me at first sight. 
I really did deserve it. ” 

“But I don’t know when that was, Golly. I 
never did see you for the first time, you know. 
You were always about, and you always had 
been.’ f 

“That is like eternity, with no beginning, but it 
is not like eternity as regards no ending, worse 
luck!” 

“We shouldn’t have been happy.” 

“Rats! You might not have been, but I 
jolly well should. ” 

“But let’s always be friends, Golly.” 

“See what your Jimmy says about that. Not 
if I know his jawbone. But look here, Patricia, 
we’ll part friends, whether we are going on with it 
or not. And I don’t mind telling you that, though 
of course I’d much rather be happy myself than 


Through Deep Waters 395 


you, still if I can’t be, I’d rather you had the next 
innings than anybody else. And I hope you’ll 
have a good one — a century if you like. ” 

“That is very dear of you,” and Patricia laid 
her hand on his arm, “and I hope this isn’t really 
good-bye.” 

“So do I — for some things,” said Golly enig- 
matically, “but not for all.” 

That little ache had begun again in his heart at 
Patricia’s touch, and Golly was one to have an 
aching tooth out. Patricia had always, on the 
contrary, been in favour of stopping rather than 
extraction — but then she was a woman and Golly 
was a man. 

It is when the excitement of sorrow has subsided, 
and everyday life has slipped back into the rut 
from out of which it was jolted, that the pain 
becomes unbearable. 

So it was with Aunt Lucy. Her calmness and 
supernatural content began to fade and flicker out, 
and the numbed sensibilities started to throb and 
ache as a freshly-torn wound. It came upon her 
as she stood one day looking down on her dearly- 
loved home, which was furnished with all the 
associations of her married life, and then it was 
for the loss of the rectory rather than of her 
husband that she raised a bitter cry. 

“Oh! I cannot leave it. I cannot go!” she 
sobbed; “there is not a stick or stone of the place 
that is not mine. It is cruel to turn me out, and 


396 


Patricia 


take away from me the only thing that is left. 
Oh! let me stay at Lynfield! It will kill me — kill 
me to take me anywhere else!’ , 

“But mother,” said Maggie, “I have to find 
work, and in a big town I can get a situation, and 
you can have a little home in the suburbs. ” 

“I’d rather you left me in the churchyard at 
Lynfield, if only I can stay,” cried Aunt Lucy, 
refusing to be comforted. ” 

“It is no use being unreasonable — ” began her 
daughter, but just then Wellingborough came up. 

“All big things are unreasonable,” he said 
gently; “it is a sign of their bigness when they 
outgrow reason. And grief such as your mother’s 
is very big. I don’t wonder you love Lynfield,” 
he continued, turning to Mrs. Vaughan, “and your 
old home here, and the church, and village, and all 
your friends; and the church-yard, too, for even 
that is rich for you. A little child of long ago, 
and now your beloved husband, and how many 
friends ! Let us walk up and down the avenue for 
a bit together and talk of all these things, and try 
and find a bit of comfort for you.” 

^unt Lucy wiped her eyes. 

“You do understand so well,” she whispered. 
“I hate Maggie’s talk about that horrid town — 
not that I don’t know how well she means it — but 
I just can’t bear it!” 

“Of course you can’t. I hardly can, either,” 
and he smiled, “and there is still plenty of time.” 
“I am sure I don’t know how it is,” and Aunt 


Through Deep Waters 397 


Lucy mopped her face with the little wet ball which 
had once been a pocket-handkerchief, “but I seem 
to feel losing my home almost more than losing 
my dear husband. Not that I really can, of 
course, but I feel more upset. ” 

“It is like this. With the great overwhelming 
loss of him you couldn’t carry even a bit of so vast 
a load by yourself and so you cast it all on God 
and He is carrying it for you. But the loss of a 
living is so much smaller that you can carry it 
alone, and so you are trying to do so. But it is a 
bit foolish to try, dear Mrs. Vaughan, when you 
can have that carried for you, too. It is always 
the way. We do so much better in the big things 
because they are too big for us alone and we must 
seek Help. It is in the lesser things we want to 
run on our own that we fail. ” 

“Oh! that is so true, my dear. Forgive me 
calling you that, but you have been very dear to 
me during all this sad time.” 

“We will pray for a way out of this that won’t 
hurt,” said Jim. 

But it was Patricia not Providence who provided 
the way after all, for God never does Himself what 
His children are capable of doing by their own 
ingenuity or intelligence. He often whispers a 
suggestion, and probably He did so to Patricia, 
though she did not recognize His Voice. 

“Oh, Jim!” she said breathlessly as she ran to 
meet him up the drive. “I have had a thought. 
You won’t be angry, will you? but I do think it 


398 


Patricia 


would be a splendid plan to settle all the horrible 
book money on Aunt Lucy, which will enable her 
to stay on in Lynfield in a little house of her own — 
and it will wash all the horribleness out of it, if it 
only makes her happy again. The cheque, you 
know, was for five thousand pounds, and more is 
coming in. Do let me. It will be so lovely! 
What do you think?” 

“The money is entirely your own to do what you 
like with. ” 

“Oh! Jim, don’t be stand-off and horrid. 
You really have an awful temper,” she added, tak- 
ing his arm. “It is absolutely too sweet of me to 
risk marrying a man with such a temper as yours. 
I know you’ll beat me!” 

“How ridiculous you are!” he replied laughing. 
“And I’m not a bit stand-off or horrid — though I 
have rather a vile temper, I own. I think it is 
a frightfully nice idea of yours about Aunt Lucy. 
Poor dear! it will lighten her load. ” 

“And she won’t mind a bit about the money’s 
being rather dirty, as you would, and men with 
ridiculous senses of honour. How many senses of 
honour do men have, Jim? Quite half-a-dozen 
ordinary working ones? I expect woman’s sense 
of honour was taken out of her to make man with, 
and then his rib was a returned hospitality.” 

“Patricia, I am no longer anxious about your 
health — Richard seems quite himself again.” 

“I can’t help talking nonsense when I am as 
happy as all this, Jim. And so it is all your fault 


Through Deep Waters 399 


for making me happy. Do you know I have 
hardly talked any nonsense for about eighteen 
months.” 

“ I don’t mind what you say as long as you are 
well and happy. ” 

“Oh Jim! and I was always noted for my bril- 
liant conversation. Think what I shall suffer 
from such an unappreciative husband. I think 
Miss Varley’s house will just suit Aunt Lucy.” 

“But what will become of Miss Varley?” 

“Don’t throw obstacles in the way, I beseech 
you. Miss Varley will very likely die. You 
might point out to her that it is her Christian duty 
to do so. I am sure she would far rather rejoin 
her dear duchess in another world, and let us have 
her cottage. ” 

“But it might be difficult to arrange all that 
at a moment’s notice. I think we’d better find 
another house for your aunt. How about that 
old one that has been empty for so long? It isn’t 
too small, and I will do it up all right. ” 

“ Oh ! how lovely ! It is the one without a damp 
course. I always used to hope Uncle George was 
swearing when he told about it, but I am afraid 
he never was. ” 

“One can be put in all right I should think, and 
it is a nice old house, and can be made quite 
pretty.” 

Patricia clapped her hands. 

“You are adorable!” she said, “when you are 
not in a temper, I mean. Do you know, Jim, 


400 


Patricia 


I am ever so much happier now the exalte stage of 
being engaged to you has passed. It was almost 
like being in church at first, for I was always so 
afraid of saying and doing the wrong thing; and 
living up to your ideal of me was like always dancing 
on tiptoes. But now, ” and her merry voice grew 
tender, “now you know the very worst of me, and 
how horrid I am, and — and — still don’t dislike me ; 
and I know what an awful temper you have, and 
that you are not quite like an apostle all the way 
through, but that there is just a good substratum 
of human nature, — why, I think we love each other 
much, much more, because we love the real you 
and me, and not just a Lallie Charles photograph 
and a stained-glass window. And now I am never 
afraid of shocking you because you have survived 
the worst shock I was capable of producing, and, 
moreover, you do rather enjoy ordinary shocked- 
ness, under your surplice, you know.” 

“ You’ve done me a lot of good, Patricia, and 
we are going to walk together, not dance on tip- 
toes any longer. Or rather it seems to me we are 
going to run. I shall be often out of breath, I 
/ foresee.” 

“ That will be all right, and I expect when we are 
married you’ll get your second wind. But, darling, 
are you sure you like the real me, which has been a- 
sleep in a horrible sort of creche cradle ever since my 
father died, and which you have waked up again? ” 

“With a kiss, like the sleeping beauty’s prince?” 
he suggested. 


Through Deep Waters 401 


“ Not in the least. A kiss wasn’t half big enough 
or unusual enough to wake me! Babies never 
wake when you kiss them, but if you let the sun 
stream straight on to their faces they do wake — 
and that is what has awakened me. ” 

“I own you are different from what I thought, 
but you are infinitely dearer.” 

“I seem to have been living in the dream of 
Lynfield for all these months, and never really been 
awake enough to laugh.” 

“ It was an awful change for you, darling, and a 
great jolt out of all your old life and ways and 
pleasures. You must have suffered tortures of 
homesickness. ” 

“I did,” and Patricia’s smile faded, “and that 
was why I flirted so with Golly, and almost 
married him.” 

Patricia dared not have owned this a couple of 
months ago. 

“Don’t say that!” exclaimed Jim sharply, “it’s 
— it’s sacrilege. You didn’t almost marry Golly. 
I should not have allowed it.” 

“You didn’t,” she replied simply. “But can’t 
you see, Jim, how I would have done anything to 
have escaped from life at the rectory?” 

“Even been willing to exchange it for a vicarage 
in London — eh?” 

“You are growing frightfully nice, dear, and so 
understanding — and really I am beginning to 
think your temper isn’t so bad after all. And I 
am not nearly so frightened of that vicarage as I 


26 


402 


Patricia 


used to be, now you really know the sort of person 
I am — being just off Grosvenor Square makes it 
so unvicaragey, just as being a viscount makes 
you so unclergymanly. ” 

“I love to have what appeals to you. ” 

1 ‘Darling! you are coming on! I shouldn’t 
wonder if by the time of our silver wedding you 
were quite human.” 

“If I respond to your educative influence, no 
doubt I shall be. ” 

“Jim dear,” asked Patricia after a moment’s 
pause during which she was fastening a flower in 
his buttonhole, “which would you rather I was — 
clever and a little dishonourable, or the soul of 
honour and thoroughly stupid?” 

“ I would rather you were just as you are, sweet- 
heart.” 

“That is most fortunate. Oh! won’t it be fun 
telling Aunt Lucy!” 

“Bags me to be there, as we used to say at 
school,” said Jim. 

“ Do you know, darling, that when I think of all 
the niceness that has come out of that horrible 
book ” 

“ It wasn’t horrible,” interrupted Jim. “ It was 
brilliant and delightful and frightfully clever. 
There was only one blotted bit.” 

“Well, as I was saying, when I reflect on the 
value of that blot to Aunt Lucy, and to our real 
understanding of each other, and the breaking of 
that plaster image of me, which you might have 


Through Deep Waters 403 


married, I can’t help feeling a teeny bit glad that 
I did it after all. I know it is wicked and hope- 
less of me ! And it will never make a tract for you, 
Jim, because in tracts wickedness always ends in 
misery, and never in happy marriages and comfort- 
able incomes for widows and orphans, as this has 
done. Still I thought I’d better confess it — and 
now you know the very worst of me there is.” 

Jim kissed her and then he said: 

“You are wrong about the tract, darling, at 
least the truth round which you build your imagin- 
ary tract. And the truth is this. There is only 
one thing that can ever bring good out of evil, 
or turn disease into health, or water into wine, and 
that is the Touch of Christ. A thing may be 
horrid and bad in itself, and we may be horrid and 
bad for having done it, but if we can only get 
Christ to touch it, it can all be transformed and 
transfigured. But ‘that kind cometh only by 
prayer and fasting, ’ ” he added half to himself. 

“Then you are wrong about this, dearest, for 
it is all turned into gold and I never prayed about 
it at all.” 

“ No, but I did, ” said Jim quietly. 


CHAPTER XV 


PATRICIA FINDS HERSELF 

Once again Patricia sat at home in a London 
drawing-room, and her present happiness was 
fighting with the plaintive expression which some 
wild, sad, Irish ancestress had bequeathed to this 
daughter of far-future days. Her naturally mourn- 
ful, liquid eyes held a gleam of sunshine in their 
depths, and a little smile flickered about the sweet 
pathetic mouth, which was the real beauty of 
Patricia’s face. Many plain people have beautiful 
eyes — but a beautiful mouth makes it impossible 
for any face to be plain. She was looking much 
better, too, in health than when she was married 
nearly six months ago, and so her face was fresher 
/ and the tired look was wiped from off it. For 
Patricia now had so much to do that she was never 
tired; the absorbing interest of an absolutely full 
life brought back all the attributes of youth, which 
Patricia had for a time laid by. She had never 
been anything but a woman since the very early 
days when she was a boy ; now she was finding her 
girlhood in the delightful wonder of being really 
loved. She had always had someone, generally 
404 


Patricia Finds Herself 


405 


several, making love to her, but that is not at all 
the same thing. There may be more pleasure in 
it, but there is less happiness, and it is the atmo- 
sphere of happiness in which people grow strong 
and glad. 

“Has his lordship come in?” she asked the 
footman who was mending the fire. 

“Yes, my lady, but there is someone with him 
in the library and a motor waiting at the door.” 

“Who is it? Didn’t you answer the door?” 

“No, my lady. Sharpe and Frederick answered 
it. But I think it is the Duchess of Armagh’s 
car.” 

“Bring up some fresh tea directly, and hot 
cakes and things.” 

“Very good, my lady.” 

A few minutes later Jim bounded upstairs. 

“Well, sweetheart. I thought I should never 
be free. Now give me something to eat, and tell 
me all about everything you have done today.” 

“It has been a perfectly splendid day, Jim. I 
have adored every minute of it. I went into the 
Park quite early just to fill up my lungs with fresh 
air on which to draw during the meetings. And 
I saw heaps of people I knew, and was talking so 
much I was nearly late for that awful committee 
meeting you told me to go to. I put on my best 
hat and made a speech. It was a really splendid 
speech, Jim, not at all relevant, but everyone 
seemed to enjoy it awfully. I was in the chair. 
You can’t think how a chair suits me and how well 


406 


Patricia 


I conduct things. By the way, I am thinking of 
starting a mothers’ meeting, Jim, entirely for, the 
duchesses in this parish. I shall conduct it my- 
self, and it won’t matter a bit about my not being 
one, because people who conduct things parochially 
never are the thing themselves. Maggie always ran 
the Mothers’ Union, and Uncle George opened the 
G. F. S. I never knew any one less like a friendly 
girl than Uncle George was, except perhaps Maggie 
as a united mother. And every quarter we’ll have 
tea and buns and a princess to meet them. Do 
you know, dearest, I have just come to the con- 
clusion that nobody in London is the same age as 
I am, and I can’t think why not. I am much too 
young for the nineteenth century, and much too 
old for the twentieth. I seem just half a generation 
wrong.” 

“You are an ageless sort of person, I think,” 
said her husband when she paused for breath. 
“I can never imagine you a day older or younger 
than you are now — and nobody else is just your 
age, because you have no age, you see. ” 

“That is why I couldn’t have a black carpet for 
my drawing-room — I am not quite modem enough, 
and yet I am too modem for a green one. So I 
had this purple one as a sort of compromise. 
And besides, it will match you well when you are a 
Bishop. I think a purple carpet will be most 
suitable for your episcopal feet. By the way, when 
you are a spiritual asjvell as a temporal peer you 
will take precedence of yourself. It will be most 


Patricia Finds Herself 


407 


awkward — your coronet will have to walk out of a 
room before your apron, — so you will have to go 
on all fours. There will be no other way of arrang- 
ing it. But I shall still only have your temporal 
precedence, which is rather a shame for Bishops’ 
wives, because when there doesn’t happen to be 
any temporal precedence it does sound so morgan- 
atic for the wife. I shall be rather glad when you 
are a Bishop, darling, because it will ensure your 
only having one wife. Of course I think it likely 
that you would temporally be content with one, 
seeing that one is me ; but this will make it quite 
sure. I remember saying when I was little that I 
loved people to come to lunch because it made 
bread sauce with the chicken certain. On other 
days it was likely, but not absolutely certain. And 
I feel like that about the bishopric.” 

Jim grinned and ate bread and jam, and Patricia 
rattled on: 

“ Canon Crosbie’s wife is on the committee, and 
she said how pleased she was that you had married 
me — or rather somebody; I don’t think she minded 
at all about its being me — but a parish to her 
without a clergyman’s wife in it, is like the House 
of Lords without the Woolsack. I told her I was 
most awfully glad, too, that you had married me, 
and I hoped that I should have ten children! She 
looked so shocked, and took out her pocket- 
handkerchief which she held before her mouth as if 
there were an escape of sewer-gas, and whispered 
from behind it that I must make it a matter of 


408 


Patricia 


prayer. But really, Jim, though for your sake I 
refrained from saying so to her, I do think it would 
be a most unnecessary prayer seeing that I have 
married a clergyman! I think it would be just 
as silly to write the menus and then pray that 
there might be ham and spinach for dinner. ” 
“Thank you for your silence, Patricia. It must 
have cost you a lot. ” 

“It did. Silence always costs me so much that 
I can’t afford to indulge in it often, or I should 
quickly become a bankrupt. And it would be 
really much worse for you to have an insolvent 
wife than one who is a little indiscreet at times. ” 
“Much worse,” agreed her husband. 

“Then I went on to a most delightful luncheon 
party at the Bessingtons’ — a hen party, but such 
ultra superior hens. Everybody talked at once 
and clucked over their own particular egg — at 
least the authoresses and musicians and artists did, 
and we listened — if you can listen when you are 
talking as fast as you are able — and I got very 
mixed in my mind about middle distances, and 
symphonies, and publishers, but it was one of those 
parties which make you feel awfully clever — and 
that is such a nice feeling. ” 

“Aren’t you tired of it?” asked Jim. 

“No,” she replied, blowing him a kiss, “nor never 
could be. I forgot by the time the coffee came in 
whether I had written a book or painted a picture 
or composed an opera, or done all three — but a 
cigarette cleared away the smoke and I remem- 


Patricia Finds Herself 


409 


bered that I was a biographess. You know that 
tall, bleak Evangeline Craik, who always looks 
as if she had a cold in her head, and paints those 
divine pictures of sheep in snowdrifts — cold 
mutton I always call them — and I expect it is 
painting so much snow that has given her the look 
of a chronic cold ; well, she is a total abstainer from 
biographies, — she says life isn’t long enough to 
know all the people you want to once, and reading 
their biographies is like knowing them twice — but 
she broke her pledge in favour of mine, and she 
was awfully complimentary about it.” 

“What did she say?” 

“Oh, she only said, ‘not bad!’ but Evangeline’s 
‘not bads’ are really an immense compliment.” 

“I may be old-fashioned,” said Jim, “but I 
think you are worthy of compliments better ex- 
pressed.” 

“Don’t get too old-fashioned, darling, or you 
will develop into an early Father, and I shan’t 
know what to talk to you about. Ina Bessington 
has just finished a new novel. I adore her novels, 
they are just like meeting people you know. And 
her boys were so killing about it. They came 
down after lunch — creatures of nine and five — and 
the nine-year-old said, ‘ Mummy has called her new 
book Susan — did you ever hear such a rotten name? 
Isn’t she a silly ass?’ and then the five-year-old 
chimed in, ‘Silly-billy! Silly -billy, silly-billy, 
Mummy!’ Ina Bessington says she has brought 
them up on the oldest-fashioned principles because 


4io 


Patricia 


she wanted them to reverence their parents, and 
this is the result. You can’t keep the spirit of 
the age out of bassinets — let alone nurseries!” 

“I should have expected a raven to help itself 
to my eyes immediately if I had ever called my 
mother a silly ass,” said Jim. 

“But the Bessington boys adore Ina. She has 
a girl just out, too, you know, and she had given 
her an awful shock by remarking, ‘you are very 
sweet and darling, Mummy, but I do wish I had 
a proper mother!’ ‘A what?’ shrieked Ina, and 
Claudia had gone on to explain — ‘I mean a real 
mother who is old and stout, and doesn’t do any 
of our things, like Dorothy Lethbridge’s mother!’ 
Now Lady Lethbridge has had about a hundred 
children and married late to begin with, so by this 
time, as Dorothy is the youngest, she is well over 
sixty, and all the young mothers were pitying 
Dorothy frightfully, because her mother is much 
too old to racket about with her — so you can 
imagine what a shock it was to find all their girls 
were envying Dorothy!” 

Her husband laughed. “Modernness seems 
coming up again on the other side, it has effectually 
looped the loop.” 

“Ina asked Claudia if she didn’t think Lady 
Lethbridge was just a little too old, and she said, 
‘ Oh, not for a proper mother. I think oldness is 
so comforting.’ So I have quite decided, Jim, 
that when I have children I shall be both ‘ grateful 
^nd comforting,’ and shall be as old as I know how,” 


Patricia Finds Herself 


411 

“Oh, no, you won’t!” and Jim shook his head; 
“you are as incapable of being old as the Bessing- 
ton boy was of being reverent. It is not the 
fault of either — it is just the spirit of the age.” 

“Well, perhaps I won’t be old, but I shall be 
middle-aged, because I adore middle cuts of 
everything, and the middle cut of age seems equally 
delightful. ” 

“You don’t know much about it yet, sweetheart ; 
but I agree with you it is the nicest time of life, 
and the longest.” 

“Youth is so strenuous and everything matters 
so frightfully — but now I am over thirty I have 
time to enjoy things properly; — and it would kill 
me to be quite as young as Claudia Bessington and 
her friends, who never cease insulting each other. 
But I never was so young as that, even when I was 
born, and when I came out thirteen years ago 
it was a much calmer affair, and nothing was 
expected of us except lovers.” 

“And that you found comparatively easy?” 

“Do you know, Jim,” she continued thought- 
fully, “ I have been thinking lately that you have a 
very flirty manner.” 

“What next?” exclaimed her husband in amaze- 
ment. 

“It is no use being surprised and denying it,” 
said Patricia, “because, though you may call it 
sympathy and religion and parish priestcraft and 
all that sort of thing, it is real flirtiness, and I 
have come to the conclusion that that is one 


412 


Patricia 


of the reasons why you are so popular in this 
parish.” 

“Really, darling, you take my breath away.” 

“And that is why people are always coming to 
consult you. ” 

“But I never, never flirt with them, Patricia. 
It is an absolute invention on your part.” 

“Oh! I know you don’t consciously, and that is 
why I only said a flirty manner. I don’t think you 
are at all a flirt. ” 

“Well, that is something,” replied Jim laughing. 

“But all the same you talk to everyone as if 
they were the only person in the world — excuse 
grammar — and that is the essence of all flirtation, ” 
added Patricia triumphantly. 

“You amaze me,” said Jim. 

“ 1 1 am not afraid with any amazement,’” quoted 
his wife, “because I promised the Archbishop at 
my wedding I wouldn’t be, as he seemed to make 
a point of it. Still I do almost agree with Mrs. 
Crosbie that an unmarried parson lives in a fool’s 
paradise beyond all belief. ” 

“I don’t,” argued Jim. 

“Not now, dear love, but formerly! It is in 
my humble opinion the main duty of a clergy- 
man’s wife to stand beside the man in the street 
and shout out to her husband all that she sees 
from that vantage ground; — but there Mrs. 
Crosbie would not agree with me; she never sees 
the truth where her husband is concerned, much 
less tells it. Now I am priceless as a man in the 


Patricia Finds Herself 


4i3 


street. And when all these sweet, smart ladies 
come to consult you about their souls, you may 
think it is religious experience, but I don’t.” 

'‘What do you call it, then?” 

“I call it a sanctified hors <T oeuvre.” 

“Patricia, you are incorrigible!” 

“I don’t think there is the slightest harm in it, 
of course; only it just isn’t pure religion and unde- 
filed like visiting the widows and orphans in their 
affliction, you know, and you were labouring under 
a bit of a delusion if you thought it was. That is 
all, darling. And I do think you are quite perfect, 
and that is why everybody wants to come and see 
you. I should myself if I were one of them. ” 

“Don’t think I believe you,, sweetheart,” said 
her husband, kissing her. But all the same he did. 

It was a few days after this that Jim noticed 
something different in his wife which he could not 
explain or account for. But he was a patient man 
and could afford to wait for a confidence which 
he knew would not be long in forthcoming. On 
Sunday night he had been preaching at St. Paul’s 
and all the way home in the motor Patricia held 
his hand and looked out of the window without 
talking, which was most unlike her, but as she 
smiled once or twice to herself Jim was content. 
He guessed she had found a new happiness, but as 
to what it was he did not guess aright. As they 
sat rather late in the smoke-room that night she 
told him. 

“Jim,” she said suddenly, throwing her cigar- 


4H 


Patricia 


ette into the fire, “I understood your sermon 
tonight.” 

“It wasn’t very difficult to understand, darling.” 

“ No, it wasn’t at all difficult — but it would have 
been impossible, as your sermons always have been 
impossible for me to understand really — until 
now. ” 

“Why any difference now?” asked her husband. 

“Because such a perfect thing happened to me 
the other night, Jim. ” 

“Tell me, darling, all about it.” 

“ It was after that dinner-party at the Levinges ’, 
just after Parkyns had taken off my frock and 
brushed my hair, and I was standing looking into 
the fire knowing it was time to say my prayers, and 
yet somehow feeling it rather a bore to do so, and 
then suddenly — I wish I had seen a vision because 
then I could have described it so much better — 
but I didn’t. I didn’t see anything at all, but 
all the same I realized the living Personality of 
Christ; He just passed by. It only lasted a 
moment or two — but everything was immediately 
answered, and put in its right place, and it gave 
me the most exquisite thrill that I have ever had. 
And then I remembered I was going to say my 
prayers, and I almost laughed at the sort of prayers 
I was going to say — more like an order to Harrod’s 
Stores than real prayers, and I was amazed that 
I could ever have been so dull and stupid! And 
yet I am not really a dull or stupid person, am I, 
Jim?” 


Patricia Finds Herself 


4i5 


“I should rather think not, sweetheart.’* 

“Well, I have always prayed like that — a sort 
of daily order to an omnipotent Tradesman. We 
really are funny — we human beings! And then 
I remembered I once heard a Bishop say that 
prayer should be the romance of the day — and in 
a flash I understood what he meant. Oh, Jim! 
how my heart did beat when I knelt down — I felt 
as if I had been running for miles ! It was exquisite ! 
And I couldn’t waste any time asking for things — 
it was too glorious and too immense. Do you 
know what I mean?” 

“ Of course I do. But it didn’t come to me like 
that. It never does come in the same way to two 
people, I think; mine was gradual, after I was 
once on the lookout. It came like the stars do 
when you are looking at the sky — you keep seeing 
more where there were none when you first looked 
— don’t you know?” 

“ It came to me like a flashlight, ” said Patricia, 
“and in that flash I saw things I have never seen 
before, or even known were there. And nothing 
can ever be really quite dull or tiresome again. 
And the meaning of and answer to everything is not 
religion, or creeds, or doctrine, or even Christianity 
as a thing — it is just Christ Himself as a Person. 
I simply ache with the wonder of it. And I am not 
a bit surprised that so few people do really believe, 
because it is too immense for ordinary minds to 
be able to grasp. ” 

“But not for ordinary faith to grasp — and faith 


416 


Patricia 


you know, darling, is the most natural and super- 
natural of the gifts of man. The power of the 
world is its faith — faith in something, or someone, 
or self. Everything that has ever been done has 
been floated on a venture of faith. And it is this 
irresistible force in the world which carries us into 
the beyond of reason, or probability, or practic- 
ability ; for when faith finds her home in God then 
has she come to her own, and there are no limits 
to infinity; so the impossible is being achieved 
every day by the extraordinary faith of quite 
ordinary people. For, don’t you see, a mind would 
not be ordinary without this supreme attribute? 
And we know that there is a receiver somewhere in 
every soul which will respond to the call of faith, 
and therefore nothing is too immense to convey by 
it.” 

Patricia nodded. “I am only beginning to feel 
normal again this last day or two, because it is 
sinking into a back-thought instead of keeping 
me at fever heat. And yet I am frightfully 
afraid of losing the consciousness of it, Jim, — 
because it is so thrilling and absorbing and 
everything would be so dull without it.” 

“You won’t really lose it, darling, but you will 
lose sight of it often, I am sure. Otherwise, 
don’t you see, you’d never have patience to go on 
with earth life. We aren’t strong enough here to 
bear the light of perpetual vision — only in flashes, 
that we may live and work in the afterglow. ” 

“I am not' good at afterglow,” said Patricia 


Patricia Finds Herself 


4i7 


thoughtfully — '‘everything is more like lightning 
with me on a dark night — things are suddenly 
illuminated and distinct and brilliant, and then it 
is night again, and I am sick for the next flash.” 

“But you can’t have perpetual lightning yet, 
dearest.” 

“ I suppose I should get spiritually electrocuted,” 
said Patricia with a smile. 

“The people I really think are the most to be 
commended,” said Jim, “are those who live the 
ordinary, monotonous, religious life without ever 
having seen the vision at all — and there are 
thousands of them. ” 

“Like Uncle George,” suggested Patricia. 

“Yes, I should say so — but of course we never 
quite know how much people have, or have not, 
seen. ” 

“While of course when you have once had a 
vision of the Christ, you simply can’t ever be 
satisfied with the ordinary life again — there is no 
question of being religious then ; any more than a 
blind person who had received his sight would be 
content to shut his eyes and read Braille. ” 

“That is so, dearest. But I have always 
thought that just as there are different degrees of 
mental and physical capacity, so there is of 
spiritual capacity also in people, and that only to 
some is the vision vouchsafed — those whom we 
should call spiritual geniuses.” 

“It would be awful to go through life and miss 
it altogether,” said Patricia. 


87 


418 


Patricia 


“ Only through this life, ” amended her husband. 
“They’ll have the vision afterwards; sometime 
and somewhere, right enough.” 

“Do you know,” she continued thoughtfully, 
“I don’t think when I come to die that I shall be 
half so bothered about my sins as about my crass 
stupidity ! I mean, ’ ’ she added by way of explana- 
tion, “that I shall feel that it requires Christ to 
take away sins, and that He has done that once and 
for all; but not even God can save us from our 
own stupidity, and that is what strikes me as so 
insupportable in myself, and most people I know, 
and which it is so hopeless to rectify.” 

“ It is a very difficult question how much people 
are to blame for stupidity — especially spiritual 
stupidity. ” 

“I always blame people for stupidity,” said 
Patricia, “and myself is no exception to the rule.” 

“But God’s ways are not our ways, you know. ” 

“No, but it was when I was conscious of Him 
that the abyss of my former stupidity first struck 
me.” 

“But still He may not altogether blame — I 
cannot tell — but ‘ He knoweth our frame, He 
remembereth that we are dust.’” 

“And I am stupid still,” said Patricia, “that is 
what is so maddening ! My eyes have been opened 
and yet I do not always see. ” 

“ It isn’t stupidity, dearest. It is mortal limita- 
tions.” 

“I loathe limitations — they are so dull and 


Patricia Finds Herself 


419 


tiresome and unpleasant. And I don’t wonder 
that God ‘is provoked every day’ — with people 
like us to deal with!” 

“Yet He has found among such people ‘men 
after His own heart, ’ and His patience is limitless. ” 

“It is like being a bird in a cage, Jim, when you 
do realize. You want so frightfully to fly farther, 
and there are always bars of inability to do so, 
call them stupidity, or limitations, or whatever 
you like. And what is worse even than bars, you 
get tired yourself, and are content to hop about 
and peck again. Half the people I know spend 
their lives in pecking!” 

Jim threw back his head and laughed. 

“But if the cage door was open all the time,” 
she continued, “why, what a goose the bird must 
be!” 

“That is what I am not perfectly sure about, 
Patricia, whether the cage door is open for all; 
though I always knew yours was.” 

“The open door stands for freedom,” said 
Patricia thoughtfully. 

“Yes, and spiritual freedom is rarer than intel- 
lectual freedom. But all life here is fettered and 
cramped, and that is why it is a perpetual wonder 
to me that men are content to accept the absurdity 
that this life is all.” 

“The bird’s wings are a proof of the region of 
air even though it only hops in its cage. ” 

“Exactly. Still I think it is impossible for 
many ever to get out of the cage in this stage of 


420 


Patricia 


their existence,' without any fault of their own at 
all.” 

“When did you get out of yours, Jim?” asked 
his wife, laying her hand on his. 

“I couldn’t tell you, dearest, for I don’t know. 
But I first saw the door was open when I was at 
Eton.” 

“Tell me about it.” 

“I had a great friend there — quite an ordinary, 
everyday, normal kind of chap — whom I never 
suspected of being religious at all, only he was 
quite straight and clean and of good stuff all 
through. Well, he died, in our last year there, 
and I went to see him, feeling pretty bad about 
him altogether. We were going to Oxford the 
next term, and then into the Foreign Office, and 
I had a sort of resentment in my mind that he 
should be cut out of it all. It didn’t seem fair on 
him. But when I went in — I can see his face now 
after all these years — he gave a sort of half smile, 
and murmured ‘It’s ripping, Jim’! I asked, 
‘What is?’ and he said, ‘The Life I’m going to.’ 
I was dumbfounded and awfully shy, but I asked 
him if he didn’t mind giving up his career and all 
that, and he said ‘Oh! Jim, you are an ass! I 
couldn’t be bothered with that footlin ’ stuff, now 
I’ve once seen this.’ And I asked him what he 
saw, and begged him to tell me, and he said what 
I’ve never forgotten — ‘ I can’t explain it somehow, 
but oh, Jim, don’t be a fool — you must see it for 
yourself to know!’ and then he got rather excited 


Patricia Finds Herself 


421 


and the nurse sent me away. And when I was 
sent for again he did not know me, he was so far 
gone, but he kept talking to a present Christ, and 
I heard him say, ‘Of course I always loved You in 
a way, but it was never the least like this — it 
couldn’t be, You know, till I’d seen You!’ That 
night they told me he was gone — but he had the 
vision right enough, Patricia. I saw him see it, 
though I couldn’t see it myself. And I made up 
my mind I’d see it, too. It was after that when 
I began to think the Foreign Office dull and stuffy 
— it wouldn’t satisfy me. As a matter of fact I 
found that no career would, except taking Orders. 
I’d seen the open door and I never rested till I’d 
had a fly through. ” 

“And after one fly you want more,” said 
Patricia. 

“You just don’t want anything inside the cage 
again, until you are hungry and thirsty and tired, 
and then you have to give up flying for a bit.” 

Patricia nodded. “I am beginning to feel like 
that,” she said, “though it is a disgusting feeling. 
But,” she added with a smile, “bird-seed is a very 
calming diet.” 

On the following Thursday Patricia motored 
down to Lynfield to see Aunt Lucy. By this time 
the old house in the village had been done up to the 
extreme limits of extravagant expenditure and 
good taste, and far exceeded in beauty and comfort 
the old threadbare rectory. 

The joy of a pretty home was a new one to 


422 


Patricia 


Aunt Lucy, who went about stroking her posses- 
sions with pride and devotion. She found also, to 
her great amazement, that she had time for rest 
and refreshment such as she had never dreamed of 
in the old days; and that the quiet of her life was 
giving her a new lease of health and vigour. She 
had been tired for so long that she had forgotten 
what it felt like to be thoroughly rested, and she had 
always been so busy that she had never realized 
the need to mind and body of a holiday time. 
But now there brooded a peace over the old house 
which Jim Wellingborough had made new, and 
Maggie’s daily absence at her work in a neighbour- 
ing town did not detract from those peaceful 
conditions. 

Maggie also was much happier in a commercial 
career than she had been in her overgrown girlhood 
at home. 

Thanks to the enterprise and wisdom of a great 
concern, places had been found for many gentle- 
women who were in greater need of employment 
than those of their sisters who had sprung from 
the lower classes; and among these was Maggie 
Vaughan, whose management and energy found a 
fitter field among the ledgers of a wholesale Store 
than amid the souls of a country parish. 

Agnes found plenty to do at home, looking after 
her mother and performing the little domestic 
duties in which she was always happy. Moreover, 
the new rector was most fortunately a bachelor, 
and he turned to the former ladies of the rectory 


Patricia Finds Herself 


423 


for much help and advice, which they were only 
too ready and glad to give. Patricia hoped that 
eventually he might fall in love with Agnes, but 
that was one of Patricia’s golden hopes which 
appeared in the sky rather than rested upon any 
practical foundation. Still, of course, there was 
the off-chance that, being a dreamy, musical, 
lethargic, handsome, unwise man he might drift in- 
to a state of dependence on Agnes’s help and admir- 
ation, which marriage would permanently secure. 

“The new man at Lynfield is an ass,” said Jim, 
as they were discussing him one day. 

“Yes — but rather a nice ass, don’t you think? 
And by the way,” Patricia added thoughtfully, 
“doesn’t it strike you as funny that the only 
animal that was ever uplifted by inspiration is 
selected by us as a term of opprobrium?” 

“Yes, but might not it also follow that the stupid- 
est and dullest people are not therefore necessarily 
beyond the reach of inspiration? God has made 
some big successes out of rubbishy material, as 
in the case of Jacob.” 

“I have no patience with Balaam,” exclaimed 
Patricia, “throwing away such an opportunity as 
he had. It was the only time in creation that 
communication was possible with the animal 
world, and he wasted the opportunity fussing 
about his silly crushed foot and airing his own 
grievances. I should have rushed that ass with 
questions, and so obtained no end of priceless 
information.” 


424 


Patricia 


“I have no doubt you would, dearest. But 
Balaam evidently lost his head. ” 

“He lost his temper you mean,” said Patricia, 
“and when people lose their tempers they generally 
lose a lot of other things besides. ” 

“I nearly lost you, my wife. So far be it from 
me to criticize Balaam. ” 

“But to return to Mr. Cartwright, ” said Pa- 
tricia, when she had escaped from her husband’s 
arms, “I really do think he is much better for 
Aunt Lucy than one of your earnest, modem, 
upsetting young men, who would have thought 
everything Uncle George used to do was wrong.” 

“I confess I was considering the parish of Lyn- 
field rather than your aunt, for the moment. ” 
“Well, I could never consider a community as a 
whole, when there was any one in it I cared for. 
And I am thankful Mr. Cartwright is so calm and 
unworrying. He will go on thinking about his 
voice, and the church music, and leave Lyn- 
field very much as it was, which will really suit 
Lynfield far better than being disturbed and 
improved.” 

“Very possibly,” said her husband drily. 

“And Agnes thinks he is frightfully handsome, ” 
continued Patricia, “and he really is in a big, sleepy, 
pig-like way. I think he is rather like a saintly 
pig to look at — one that has been already scalded, 
such as used to hang in the Westons’ back kitchen 
after its decease. His complexion is so clean, it 
could hardly come from ordinary cleanliness, and 


Patricia Finds Herself 


425 


his manners are very courtly, Jim. Really 
courtly!” 

“ He is the sort of man people would call gentle- 
manly,” said Jim. 

“Or 1 gentleman-like ’ seems to fit the case 
better,” suggested Patricia with a laugh. “But 
all the same he is just the type of man that elderly 
spinsters adore, and Agnes is susceptible beyond 
words. That reedy tenor of his is most appealing, 
and his beautifully-brushed fair hair and large, 
clean face will prove quite irresistible. I wish I 
could hurry it on a bit. ” 

“But you can’t, darling. It is never any use 
hurrying things on, especially things of that kind. ” 

“Waiting always spoils things for me,” mused 
Patricia, “just as difficulties put me off. ” 

“Difficulties put me on,” said her husband, 
“and I can wait any time if I get what I want in 
the end.” 

“By the time I’ve waited I am off wanting the 
thing altogether.” 

“I hope Agnes isn’t made your way, then, for I 
feel sure the Reverend Cyril will be slow to act. ” 

“I don’t really mind about his being slow, Jim, 
if only he’ll be sure. But it is the sureness I am 
doubtful about. However, I will buy Agnes a new 
hat to-day — such things often help.” 

The whole of Lynfield was greatly excited by 
Patricia’s flying visits. From the moment the 
telegram arrived announcing that she was coming, 
and long before it reached Aunt Lucy, the entire 


426 


Patricia 


population was on the lookout, hoping that she 
would have fine weather for her motor ride, and 
that things would generally turn out well. The 
baker made an extra batch of buns, and the grocer 
and butcher called exceptionally early for orders, 
and the local charwoman hurried off to the old 
house expecting that her services would be re- 
quired, and everyone talked of the viscountess’s 
(which they pronounced with the interior s well 
emphasized) approaching visit, and had their own 
particular theories about the same. That it was 
simply the outcome of Patricia’s whim was the 
only possible reason which they failed to diagnose 
— but such it invariably was. 

“Oh, my love! What a pleasure to see you!” 
exclaimed Aunt Lucy, rushing down the garden 
path with her widow’s capstrings floating in the 
breeze. “And how well you are looking!” 

“I shall look better when I am out of my veil 
and wraps,” said Patricia gaily . “The dust was 
sufficient to ransom a whole hierarchy of kings. ” 

“And how is your dear husband?” asked her 
aunt, clucking round her as a hen over a prodigal 
chick. 

“Quite flourishing, and preaching himself to 
death because it’s Lent.” 

“How nobly he works!” exclaimed Mrs. 
Vaughan. 

“He adores preaching,” said Patricia, “and 
that is why he does so much of it. I should, too, 
if I did it as well as he. ” 


Patricia Finds Herself 


427 


“I imagined it was self -mortification, being 
Lent.” 

“Well, you imagined wrong, dear aunt. It is 
hard work, of course, but there is no mortification 
about it. The mortification comes in when the 
curates preach. We are all subject to it then. 
Oh! how nice the country smells! For the first 
few hours after leaving town I live in a perpetual 
sniff, and then one gets used to it, and can’t smell 
it any more. ” 

“We are very busy in Lynfield getting up a 
rummage sale for the new organ. Mr. Cart- 
wright is so musical he seems to suffer from the old 
one, though I never noticed anything was wrong 
with it myself,” said Aunt Lucy, when Patricia 
had shed her motoring clothes, and they were 
strolling together round the garden. 

“I’ll send you some things. I have lots of 
rubbish I want to clear out. ” 

“ Oh, Patricia! You are too extravagant. The 
things you sent last time were not rubbish at all. 
They were so beautiful that I and the girls could 
not help taking a few things out before the sale. 
Of course we paid full price and put the money in, 
but I did not feel quite comfortable about it at the 
time — it seemed almost a bit like Ananias and 
Sapphira. But Maggie said that was all nonsense, 
and our money was as good as any one else’s. ” 

“She was quite right,” said Patricia, “and I in- 
sist upon your taking anything you want always. 
If you don’t take it I shall have it sent back to me 


428 


Patricia 


in London instead, so you will really injure the 
cause by not doing so. ” 

Aunt Lucy’s face cleared. 

“The aquascutum has been such a comfort, ” 
she owned, “for my old waterproof had lasted me 
for over twenty years, and what with wearing and 
lending, it was really almost worn out. ” 

Patricia’s eyes unexpectedly filled with tears. 
The old waterproof was such a picture of her aunt’s 
life — what with wearing and lending, she was 
almost worn out; and though Patricia once was 
blind to these things, now she could see, and she 
saved up the thought to tell Jim. That is one of 
the joys of married life, the saving up on the part 
of the woman to tell the man. If the time ever 
comes when she saves up things not to tell him, 
then the bloom and beauty of married life have 
been destroyed, and the man’s own rough handling 
has done this thing. The woman’s instinct is to 
tell — only fear can quench that instinct. 

“It is very peaceful on Sundays, my love, just 
sitting in a pew,” continued Mrs. Vaughan, “and 
having none of that bustling organ-playing and 
responsibility about the choir. I feel I have time 
to attend more to the service for myself, and Mr. 
Cartwright sings so beautifully, and never fails 
to finish on the right note in ‘0 Lord, save the 
King.’ I was always so nervous about that note 
in my dear husband’s lifetime, because he never 
did get ‘the King’ in tune, and he was once seri- 
ously displeased because I tried to help him out 


Patricia Finds Herself 


429 

with the organ, for the King and the organ were 
in quite different places. But now,— oh Patricia! 
the rest of feeling that if anything does go wrong it 
is not your husband’s fault!” 

“Dear aunt,” said her niece, squeezing her 
arm, “ I am so glad you are happy. ” 

“ It is wonderful and very beautiful, ” continued 
Aunt Lucy, “when one is old to look back and see 
the practical truth of how everything works to- 
gether for good to those who love God. ” 

“And sometimes to those who don’t,” said 
Patricia, “as it was in my case.” 

“ I used to think, ” said her aunt, “that the Love 
of God was a small and narrow thing, which only 
the few who could say the catechism with their 
hearts would really see; but somehow, as I have 
grown old, I have come to realize how wide and 
wonderful a thing it is, and how nearly all men see 
it in one form or another, and love it, too. There 
is many an unbeliever as regards the Church, who 
yet is full of response to the Love of God, as he 
finds it in any or everyone of the attributes which 
have built up the life of a Christian country, and 
to which he is devoted, though he does not know 
the Name of God as such. And you were like 
that, Patricia; you responded to the Love of God, 
though you did not know His Name, and people 
can’t help doing so.” 

“ But I do now, ” said Patricia softly. 

Then Patricia had to hear all about Maggie’s 
work, and Agnes’s interests ; and how Mr. and Mrs. 


430 


Patricia 


Weston were, and the number of turkeys the latter 
had sold at Christmas, and about Molly Weston's 
new young man and his prospects, and how the 
new rector opened the sewing-parties, and closed 
them with prayer and tea. And none of these 
things bored her as they used, because she saw 
the humour and pathos and aliveness of it all, 
and realized that it is life itself which is so great a 
thing, and not its temporal conditions. Patricia 
looked back on Lynfield much as we look back on 
the gardens of our childhood, where the mounds 
were mountains, and the trees heaven-high, and 
the fields untraversable. And as we realize the 
true proportions of things we begin to understand 
a fragment more of God’s ways and workings 
among the children of men. 

Then the motor whirled Patricia back to Lon- 
don again, where she found a cable from Fitzpat- 
rick saying that his ship was coming home at 
last. 

“Captain Vaughan, my lady,” announced the 
butler a few days, later in the same old, unvarying 
butler tones — and Patricia flew into her brother’s 
arms. 

“Oh, Fitz!” she cried, “how lovely it is to see 
you again, you dear old boy!” 

“I’m jolly glad to get back, too, I can tell you. 
We’ve had a long spell at sea. And your letters 
were few and far between, sweet sister.” 

“ I know. But it is impossible to write to people 
when you haven’t seen them lately. But now we 


Patricia Finds Herself 


43i 


can talk up all the back numbers, and get current 
again.” 

“And you married a parson after all,” said Fitz, 
with a laugh. “I felt sure you would not! But 
you always did do the unexpected thing, my dear. ” 

“ I married Jim, ” said Patricia, “ simply because 
he was the only possible marriageable man. 
But I knew you’d laugh. It really was rather a 
nice, funny, incongruous thing of me to do. ” 

“You a clergyman’s wife! Good Lord!” ex- 
claimed her brother. “I shall enjoy seeing you 
at it, old girl!” 

“ I am priceless — simply priceless in the diocese! 
You can’t think what beautiful speeches I make, 
Fitz; and I should vastly increase Jim’s congre- 
gation if there was room for an extra person to be 
squeezed in, which there isn’t. I met one of the 
Macdermots the other day — you remember them — 
and she said, ‘My dear Patricia, you are as amus- 
ing- as ever — I must come to your husband’s 
church!’ A good reason, wasn’t it? Jim was 
much flattered.” 

“Shall I like your husband, Pat?” 

“All women like one side of him, and all men like 
the other ; so you are bound to come in somewhere ; 
everybody does. He is not a bit our sort; but 
then, you know, we are pure pagans. Jim is dif- 
ferent ; he would always have had a passion for 
religion in whatever age he had lived. It is a 
marvel that he should have married any one like 
me!” 


432 


Patricia 


“It is not the first time in history that the Sons 
of God have looked upon the daughters of men 
and found that they were fair,” said Fitz drily. 

“But he understands our sort, — he’s a specialist 
in understanding — and he is quite human, and a 
plus-two man at golf.” 

“Doesn’t sound bad, but I’m a bit suspicious of 
parsons:” 

“Most men are. Jim says if you are a parson 
you have to prove to other men first that you are 
a man at all, which is really a great handicap. ” 

“Dull sort of profession in my opinion!” re- 
marked the sailor. Patricia laughed. 

“Jim thinks it is the only profession which isn’t 
dull, and I am beginning to agree with him.” 

Fitzpatrick whistled. 

“ ‘ Et tu, Brute ! ’ ” he said with a sigh. * ‘ Shall I 
specify the kind of brute?” 

“You don’t know what I’m talking about,” 
said Patricia. 

“I don’t. You’re right there, for once. But I 
should have thought from your earlier chronicles 
of Lynfield you had sampled the dulness of the 
country parish. ” 

“Now Fitz, — do listen and be intelligent. The 
Georges were the dullest people it would be possible 
for you to imagine, and Lynfield was the dullest 
place in the world, and yet their life at the rectory 
wasn’t a bit dull to them because of their profes- 
sion, which had to be the strongest antidote to dul- 
ness to prevent them from all dying of it. Now 


Patricia Finds Herself 


433 


don’t you see, silly? Most parishes are dull and 
many parsons are duller still, but it’s just the 
being parsons that saves their lives from dulness. ” 

“Patricia my dear,” and Fitz leaned back and 
closed his eyes, “don’t be surprised if you hear 
that I have taken Orders.” 

“No bishop would accept you as a gift!” 

“If they have accepted you — and, the news- 
papers being correct, I perceive that an arch- 
bishop blessed your union — they are getting 
broken into the brand. They have swallowed 
the camel, why strain at such a gnat as myself? 
I shouldn’t be surprised if they acquired a taste 
for us soon. ” 

“Oh, Fitz! it is fun to have you home again! I 
do hope you’ll never improve, or get older and 
wiser, or leave off talking nonsense.” 

“The roseate hues of early dawn still bloom on 
my character — and countenance, when not ex- 
posed to a tropical sun in mid-ocean. The pre- 
sent effect, I own, is more like a London fog 
than a roseate dawn, but in character I am still 
fresh as dew. By the way, Patricia, your Life 
of Father was Ai, though you wanted thrashing, 
my dear, for your indiscretions.” 

“Jim thrashed me every day for at least three 
months, so you needn’t worry. Now he only does 
it once a week, and by and by it will be only once 
a month, and then once a quarter — just as I 
improve, you know.” 

“Poor chap! I pity any man who has the 


08 


434 


Patricia 


responsibility of you. Uncle George apparently 
died of it. I thought you’d kill some of them 
down there when you went, — but hardly so soon ! ” 

“Oh, Fitz! how awful you are! But do you 
know of a nice sailor who might marry Agnes?” 

“From memory I should hardly say she was a 
sailor’s sort — though of course I am still ‘to let.’ 
Now you have married a clergyman, there is no 
knowing that I might not fall into the arms of the 
sprightly Agnes! I might prove a calming an- 
tidote to the wild excitement of the parochial 
environment. ” 

“Essence, not environment, stupid!” corrected 
his sister. 

“When you take me down to Lynfield, ” con- 
tinued Fitzpatrick, “ I shall kiss Agnes in a chaste, 
cousinly way, and see how I like it — that will be 
the first step. ” 

“You mustn’t,” shrieked Patricia. “I don’t 
believe Agnes has ever kissed a man in her life. ” 

“Well, it is quite time she began.” 

Patricia giggled. 

“I really don’t think I dare let you go down at 
all. It has taken them all this time to get over me. 
And now to begin with the fresh shock of you 
would upset them beyond words.” 

“Well, I am in no hurry, my dear. It was you 
who were precipitating my marriage. Besides, 
now you have reminded me, my affections are — 
what do you call it? — already involved.” 

“Truly, Fitz? Do tell me.” 


Patricia Finds Herself 


435 


“There’s nothing to tell.” 

“There never is with a man,” sighed his sister. 

“Only I think I’ll go back via Malta. It is 
the most convenient route.” 

“What is she like?” asked Patricia. 

“The exact opposite of you, of course. What 
a silly question!” 

“Fair, and fluffy, and quiet, and sweet, and 
good? I know,” and Patricia nodded her head 
wisely. 

“Exactly,” replied Fitz. “Have you a cigar- 
ette handy? I have done all mine. ” 

Patricia put one between his lips, and applied a 
match to the other end, and then, her face all full of 
tenderness, she dropped a kiss on the tip of his ear. 

“It is just heaven being married,” she said 
softly; “get there as fast as you can, dear boy, and 
see if I’m not telling you true.” 

Of all Patricia’s busy seasons this one was far 
and away the fullest and the best. The perpetual 
race through the days was such stimulating exer- 
cise as her soul loved. Her personality claimed a 
popularity which was as wine in her veins, and she 
played at work, and worked at play, as only a 
happy, healthy young creature could. Many a 
dull and dusty committee, many a tedious and 
trying meeting, many a well-worn, wearisome 
work owed fresh life and interest and inspiration 
to Lady Wellingborough’s transforming, trans- 
figuring touch; just as many a party and social 
function owed its success to her radiating presence. 


436 


Patricia 


The amount that she was doing, the amount 
that she found she had the capacity to do, buoyed 
her up to a high-water mark, which alone could 
satisfy her restless and aspiring soul. There was 
only one thing wanting to Patricia’s perfect hap- 
piness, and by the law which sometimes seems 
a little hard when read from the outside, that “to 
those who have shall be given,” the promise of that 
one thing came. 

“Oh! Jim,” she exclaimed excitedly, “it mayn’t 
be true — I dare say it isn’t, I want it so badly — but 
perhaps, only perhaps, Jim, — it is just possible 
that I may be going to have a baby after all. Oh ! 
won’t it be lovely?” 

Her husband clasped her tight and when he had 
left off kissing her, she continued : 

“I was getting so despairing after all these 
ages.” 

“We were only married late last autumn,” he 
reminded her. 

“Oh, darling! that is so like you — to be reason- 
able and accurate and patient. I had almost 
given up hope. ” 

“That is so like you, dearest — to give up hope 
at the first moment’s delay.” 

“You don’t measure delay by moments when 
you want anything as much as I want a baby, Jim. 
It was infinite, and immeasurable, and eternal 
while it lasted. But now! why now I shan’t mind 
waiting a bit for the treasure, nor for the other 
nine.” 


Patricia Finds Herself 


437 


“So you have decided on ten,” said Jim laugh- 
ing. And then seeing her face change, he added, 
“What is it, my darling? You have the vision 
look.” 

“It is the Vision again,” said Patricia slowly, 
“the Touch of Christ that men call life, and birth, 
and death, and love, or any other name. He is 
coming my way again, and will bring my baby 
child and lay it in my arms. Oh ! what a glory of 
happiness! I wish I could lay hold of Him as 
Jacob did and cry, ‘I will not let Thee go.’ For 
though He comes again and again, He does go, Jim, 
and I feel that it is my fault as well as my loss. ” 

“ Darling, He neither comes nor goes, as He did 
once when men looked upon His Face and clasped 
His Hands. ‘I am with you alway,’ He said. 
And, don't you remember, in those days after the 
Resurrection when their eyes were opened they 
always found Him standing in their midst? Never 
coming — He has no need to come for He is always 
here. It is only our spiritual sight that flickers, 
and goes out, and is re-lit. But remember, Patri- 
cia, He is always to be ‘found standing ’ close at 
hand, and whether our eyes happen to be open or 
shut, it does not alter the blessed fact. ” 

“Lord, that I may receive my sight!” whis- 
pered Patricia ; and then after a moment’s silence 
she smiled and said: 

“I do adore the baby, Jim, — I mean I shall. 
It is sure to be a boy because I want a girl the 
most.” 


438 


Patricia 


“I'd rather it was a boy,” said Jim. 

“Of course you would. And I can’t help 
thinking that you deserve to have your way more 
than I do. I’d rather it was what you want most, 
dearest one. I truly would. And then I can have 
the other nine, girls. I am just as glad for you to 
have your way as for me to have mine, so I am 
sure to be pleased — it must be one of the two.” 

“I shall be equally pleased either way, sweet- 
heart.” 

“And it will be rather nice to have a son for 
one thing, Jim.” 

“It doesn’t really matter about the title, 
because it goes through the feminine line, too,” 
explained her husband. “Didn’t I ever tell you? 
It came to my father through his grandmother.” 

“I was not thinking about the title,” said 
Patricia; “I was thinking how fearfully funny 
and incongruous it would be for me to have a son , 
and to want him to be a parson when he grew up ! 
But, all the same, I should.” 


Jl Selection from the 
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G. P. PUTNAM S SONS 

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Complete Catalogue sent 
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By the Author of 

“ Jiunt Olive in Bohemia,” 

“ The Notch in the Stick,” etc. 

The Peacock Feather 

By 

Leslie Moore 

$1.3 5 net. By mail , $1.50 

In a moment of reminiscent detachment the 
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Here is a rare love story, that breathes of 
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G. P. Putnam’s Sons 

New York London 



The 

Wall of Partition 

By 

Florence L. Barclay 

Author of “The Rosary,” “The Broken Halo,” “The Follow- 
ing of the Star,” “ The Mistress of Shenstone,” etc. 

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Mrs. Barclay’s new story opens with the 
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Besides the intense love interest the story 
is redolent with a delightful humor. ( 


New York Q. P. Putnam’s Sons London 



Children 
of Banishment 

(By Francis William Sullivan 

12°. $1.35 net 

A tale of the northern woods that breathes 
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The Swindler 

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Ethel H. Dell 

Author of “The Way of an Eagle,” “The Knave of Diamonds,” 
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by the one woman who counts. 

New York Q. P. Putnam’s Sons London 
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